I thought I’d grown accustomed to these goodbyes—the suddenly straightened bedroom, the guitar back on its stand, the quiet. I know what to expect. My son is a college sophomore. This is not our first rodeo.

And yet I’m finding today’s goodbye particularly difficult. Knowing he’ll be home again in 3 weeks is doing little to ease my aching heart.

I think I’m realizing for the first time that these are the little goodbyes, the goodbye baby steps.

Now my son is talking about studying abroad during his junior year. He’s considering internships across the country. Even my daughter, still in high school, will be studying for 9 days this summer in a country I could not have found on a map just 4 weeks ago.

Too soon the goodbyes will be bigger, vaster. Of course this is how it should be. I know all about the nest, and the wings, and the necessity of flight.

But today is hard. And I’m going to let myself just sit with that for a while.

Tomorrow I’ll be grateful for little goodbyes.