The In-Between Season

Motherhood, growing children, and learning to let go. This is the part no one prepares you for.

I wrote these thoughts on a plane last spring, not knowing if I’d ever share them. It turned into a quiet reflection on the in-between season of life.

Last to board the plane. No assigned seating, which means I end up exactly where you’d expect… the middle seat between two strangers.

The middle seat isn’t where anyone hopes to land, but sometimes it gives you the clearest view of everything around you.

I’m on my way to a short getaway with my husband. A few days away together.

But for now, I’m here. Typing these thoughts into the notes app on my phone somewhere above the clouds.

Thirty thousand feet in the air, in the middle seat, with my AirPods in, though they don’t cancel everything out.

Somewhere behind me, a small infant begins to cry.

A toddler’s voice follows, talking happily about something only they understand.

I remember that season of life.

Traveling with babies and toddlers.

The bags.
The snacks.
The toys.
The quiet worry about whether they’ll cry and disturb someone nearby.

It was stressful.

I feel for that mom because I was once there too.

I’m now past that season.

My kids are teenagers and young adults. They drive. They have their own lives, their own plans, their own independence.

Not needing me the way they once did.

It’s freeing.

And also a little sad.

The slow letting go isn’t easy, and I’m still learning how to adjust to it.

I hear friends chatting across the aisle.

Someone asleep against the window.

An older woman flipping the pages of a book.

Someone typing on a laptop.

As I sit here, I’m reminded that every person on this plane is in their own season of life.

Some are in the early stages of parenting.

Others are chasing a dream.

Some may be rebuilding something.

A marriage.
A career.

And some, like me, are learning how to let go and enjoy the in-between space.

Because the hands that once needed you so tightly
are slowly letting go.

Whatever seat you’re sitting in today, I hope you know you’re not alone.

These are the seasons that shape us.

And none of them last forever.

You can read my other post relating to this called: The Weekend it Stated to Feel Real

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