Yesterday I called the Purple Heart donation center they are coming to my house next week.  They will take the Little Tikes preschool table and chairs I have had for 26 years. 

Seeing it go will break my heart.  

I purchased it when my first child was a toddler and every child since then has claimed it.  It has lived with us in three different houses and has occupied many spaces within each house.  Up until last year, my youngest was using it as a fingernail painting station.  My youngest is 5’8” tall.  Clearly, she outgrew that little table set many, many moons ago.  Yet I don’t want to part with it.  

Why?

I guess giving it away feels like I am letting go of some of the best parts of my life.  

I loved being the mom of little ones.  Life was hectic and sleep-deprivation was real. But life was simple and straightforward.  The stress of raising babies was primarily physical.  Breastfeeding, potty-training and cleaning up messes were labor-intensive activities, but they weren’t complex.  

The sweet simplicity of life with little ones is something I didn’t fully appreciate when I had it.  Getting a child to eat his green beans and to take one more bite of chicken seemed so crucial.  Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.   

Little people, little problems.  Big people, big problems.  

Now life is much more complex.  There is nothing physically draining about dealing with my grown and almost grown kids.  Everything is emotionally and psychologically draining.   The worries center around car accidents, police brutality, (I am Black after all), college/career choices and healthy (or at least non-toxic) relationships.  

My youngest child is 15. Yet, for some reason I can’t seem to part with that preschool table set.  

Clearly I need therapy.  

Or perhaps just a crystal ball.  

I am familiar with the sweet, simple life I have left behind.  It’s the present and future life that concern me.  

I am at a stage in life where funerals outnumber baby showers 10 to 1.  My friends and I are burying parents, aunts, uncles and spouses.  Every other week I learn of a divorce in my age 50+ friend group or that another friend has been diagnosed with cancer.  And I am paying more and more attention to TV commercials about brain-boosting vitamins.  

Saying goodbye to that preschool table set means permanently severing ties with a relatively easy past and barreling head first into a future that looks increasingly painful from this vantage point.  

Ok, this post is not helping anybody feel better.  Sorry. 

But I do now understand my attachment to that preschool table set.  I want to keep it because of what it represents.  However, keeping it won’t slow the passage of time one millisecond.   And keeping something from another lifetime means keeping clutter.  And clutter equals chaos.  

So, I am saying goodbye to that lovely little table set next week.  

Maybe.  

Or perhaps I’ll just find a place in the basement to store it and save it for my future grandchildren.   And maybe then that little table will also represent the joy that may come to my life in the future.