I spend hours each week driving my busy kids to their various commitments. Though at times I feel like an unpaid uber driver, I also honor the sacred space for conversation that exists in the confined time between destinations.
This morning, as I was driving Cate to school, we were talking about her starting to feel ready for middle school. With her final year in elementary school passing quickly, the end is feeling increasingly palpable.
As we bounced back and forth conversationally, Cate recalled how last year at this time, she was so comfortable in elementary school that she hated the thought of leaving. Recently it’s started to feel like it’s time. Not only has she grown a year older, but she’s also had some painful friction in her journey. Though disruptive, it has ultimately made her feel ready for something new.
Growth and discomfort have a way of doing that.
As Cate processed a specific painful experience, she shared the following analogy:
“Last year, it felt like both sides of Velcro always stuck together. This year, it feels like something has come between the two sides of the Velcro that’s making it not stick together as well.”
Though her analogy was personal, I can’t stop thinking about how well it describes a more universal experience.
There are situations and relationships in my own life that I believed would hold together forever like new Velcro but didn’t. I’ve had experiences where I sensed the other side losing its stickiness, but convinced myself that if I could just make my own side more sticky, it would be enough to hold both sides together. And times when I’ve felt my own side of the Velcro wearing down or needing to pull away or had trauma puncture what once held together easily.
I’ve often wished there was a more recognized term for these transitions where the “Velcro pulls apart” and the grief that can accompany these experiences.
It is painful when friendships you care deeply about fade when the other side doesn’t want to or can’t show up for you in the way that you need. It can be grief-filled to recognize people changing in ways that don’t align with you anymore. And challenging to honor your own growth when it involves shedding things you once held dear. It also feels uncertain to stand in the gap between releasing what no longer serves while waiting for the right new things to emerge.
A mantra I often return to is “what is meant for you will stay.” Amidst doubt-filled moments, I do believe that the things meant for me will stay without my having to force or control them. The right things for me will be drawn back to me reciprocally. The right things will hold together like Velcro.
And in those circumstances of my life when I feel the Velcro pulling apart, I hope for grace and intention in that too. Not abruptly by pulling my side of the Velcro away too quickly nor by ignoring the other part if it is not reciprocating in the way I deserve. But by being attentive to the loosening when it occurs as a pathway toward the things that are meant to stick.