On Letting Go

I have always heard that these transitions get easier. I am still waiting to feel that.

This year I sent my youngest off to begin his second year of college abroad. I thought I had already done the hardest part, that first goodbye last fall. But as I stood at the airport, I felt the same tug at my heart. We all know the truth of it. It is important to let them go, to let them find their independence, to let them discover their own path. Knowing that does not make it easy.

And now here we are, back to the start of a new school year, welcoming new families and returning ones, with an incredible team behind me. I feel such gratitude for what we have built together at Brigham Learning. There is something wonderful about this season, watching students learn new things, grow more confident, understand themselves as learners, and take real risks with the guidance of their tutors. Our job is to keep nudging them toward independence, to help them trust themselves a little more each time.

For me, the theme this fall is stamina.

How do we build stamina and attention in our students? How do we help them see that it is a muscle, one that can be strengthened with practice, and that once it is built, it serves them far beyond school? A student who learns to sit with a hard problem a little longer, to push through the discomfort of not knowing right away, carries that skill into everything else they do.

And I am asking myself the same question. How do I build my own stamina, so that when I say goodbye, I can sit with the distance a little more easily? So that the longer stretches between visits feel less like an ache and more like something I know how to carry?

I do not have a tidy answer yet. But I suspect it is the same muscle we are building in our students. Practice. Patience with ourselves when it is still hard. And trust that the discomfort now is part of what makes the independence, theirs and mine, worth having.

Here is to a year of building stamina, together.