Don’t you hate it when someone cries in front of you, subjecting you to that awkward moment of deciding how to respond: sympathy, shoulder, avoidance? Don’t you hate that?

You would have hated me this morning.

Today is The Kid’s first day of school–Outsourced Childcare, as The Husband calls it. I cried at multiple moments throughout the weekend imagining the drop-off of the package. Last night, my scarce sleep was punctuated by wake-up calls delivered in the form of concerns for every aspect of his well-being in the time he spends away from home…and me. And this morning?

Well.

I remember when I first found out I was pregnant, the days of nausea and discomfort that followed, and the underlying fear: What if I’m not capable of this kind of love? After all, during dental school I purchased a beagle puppy from a breeder and took it back the next day after I realized how under-equipped I was for the responsibility of a life dependent on mine. And a baby? You can’t take a baby back.

It turns out that fear was woefully unfounded. If you want proof, ask TH about my antics this morning. We crossed the threshold of the daycare, TH toting TK in his carrier, and the head teacher greeted us. “Hi! How are y’all doing?” she asked.

In response, I burst into tears–the ugly kind, where you can’t catch your breath and you choke on your own snot and your face is screwed up so that you resemble a newborn just delivered. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to be a wreck,” I sobbed and stammered. I was met with graciousness from all corners: TH put his arm around me, the teacher assured me I could call a hundred times to check in, TK even took a break from finger-slurping to smile up from his car seat. We took him to his classroom and handed him over–along with the one-page bio I had written about him (that is probably being laughed at right now due to its existence, its specificity, or both). TH and I headed back to the car and I released another flood. And so the day began.

The ripping sensation I felt in my heart as we drove away, that I feel now as the tears rise to the surface, reminded me of another painful moment in my life: the day I drove north from Birmingham in a U-Haul headed toward New York City. I cried throughout that two-day trip as I felt the cord connecting me to home stretch ever more tightly across hundreds of miles.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you how that story ended, but in case you’re new, just read the last line of any fairy tale.

Now we’re in the after-the-happily-ever-after part. The story continues.

There are parts of our stories that require us to tell ourselves the truth, over and over again, yelling it to our hearts sometimes because the crap the world tells us is so loud. Like the form of it delivered to two of my friends lately, on separate occasions, by other mothers; these friends have kids in daycare too, and were on the receiving end of a line of judgement from mothers who rendered the following passive-aggressive accusation: “I could just never let someone else take care of my kid every day.” To those types–the types who assume that stories can only be told one way, and that their personal authorship is unequivocally labeled BEST–I would like to issue my own proclamation. And I will choose, thank you very much, to let Someone else hold the pen as I make scratch notes with my pencil; I will listen to true friends, the kind who tell you what one of mine did recently in an email, and I quote:

Anyway, whether you are at home or working, it is lots of dying to yourself which is just painful and confusing. But totally worth it.

Because here’s the thing: love makes life so much harder. Freedom, as I used to define it, is gone. But that freedom consisted of days spent pursuing my own comfort. Life is no longer black-and-white, good and bad, but streaked with gray areas that do not invite your speculation into my story, thank you very much. The life I had before I opened the door to grace was that black-and-white, right-and-wrong kind, the kind where I carried around a label-making kit and affixed my judgment on everyone. Now? I’m discovering that I may be more of a relativist than I thought, as I consider what I know to be true and realize that the Author has a story in mind for each of us–and that kind of individuality shuts my mouth and my planner and renders me in awe of all the stories there are to tell. Stories of letting go, of dying to self, of waving goodbye at the entrance to the school and hugging hello hours later. Stories of a million different ways to love.