Growing Up and Growing Out

There is something about the start of the school year which begs acquiring new clothes for one’s children. I see the advertisements on shows and online and from our regular stores, and I wonder what it would be like to have kids who love getting new-to-them clothes. I wonder because, that is not the level of easy-going children God has allotted our family.

Our daughter has grown nearly seven inches in the past year, making her 4^th grade what I might call ‘the year of disposable shoes’. Last September, we went on a shoe store visit, and came out with three pairs of bright, shiny shoes for the fall and winter, only to discover that within a mere few months, they were too small, too tight, too something. Some of those shoes she didn’t mind leaving behind her. Some of those she did, and she spent weeks squeezing her feet into too small shoes, because she just ‘loved’ them. 

It’s been the same with favorite t-shirts and some of the preferred dresses she wears. Suddenly her body has outgrown them, but her heart has not. As parents, we circle around how to have conversations with a preteen about bodies and clothes that fit bodies, while not making it awkward for everyone involved, because Lord Almighty in Heaven, there are big feelings in a tween body.

Sometimes, it’s not her grief which directs the day. Sometimes, it’s mine. 

I will look at a dress we bought together for a special event; a t-shirt that once hung about her knees and now resembles a crop top I would have worn in the mid-nineties; or one of her toddler outfits will emerge from a storage box deep in the recesses of a closet we keep closed FOR A REASON, and all of a sudden, I notice that time is moving. And sometimes I don’t want it to. 

Every time my children outgrow something, I realize that I must outgrow something, too. The seasons of growth aren’t simply individual experiences of evolution, but variations of a collective loss and grief and movement, grounded in our relationships. When my child changes, I must change, too. When my child leaves something behind, I am asked to do the same as well. When my child clings to what she knows and loves and feels comfortable wearing, even when it no longer fits, somehow, I have to move with her, perhaps even for her, so that she can see that the next step isn’t as scary as she might think.

She sometimes isn’t happy to leave her too small, loved things behind. 

I completely understand. 

We live in a part of the United States which is replete with seasons. It’s amazing how many jackets one can find necessary when the weather changes every six to eight weeks, along with bodies and souls and minds and hormones. We try on winter coats every fall to see what is too small and what we can get away with for one more season. In New England, this is practically a professional sport.

We are part of a denomination and faith tradition which also highlights seasons, asking us to walk differently during the various points in the liturgical year—we grow in some seasons; we listen in some seasons; we celebrate or step back and abstain in others. All of these allow us to experience the fullness of God’s own presence, made incarnate in our week-to-week worship and our day-to-day prayer. We get a little bit of everything, as long as we can let go of where we’ve been. 

When my daughter clings to something she loves even though she has grown out of it, she is not alone. As both a parent and general human in the world, I am growing out of lots of things that I once claimed as my own. I cling to them even though they no longer fit me. Some of the time I’ve grown out of habits and bodies that once fit like a glove. Some of the time, I’ve shrunk, and my previous expectations and dreams are now both too big and bulky for where I am in this moment. It makes me grieve, because just like those sparkly shoes nearly worn through at the toes, I loved them and thought I could wear them forever. 

My daughter’s new shoes don’t fit as well just yet. It will take time to get used to them, I remind her, but it will feel so much better on your feet. And then I echo that to myself, as I watch my baby girl who is also fitting into my clothing and shoes and growing faster than I could ever imagine—it will take time to get used to this, I whisper to myself. It will feel better when I don’t keep her as she once was, but as she is now.