In 2019, I was out in the world.

I know, most of you were probably out in the world, too, but after years of being ‘just a mom,’ both of my kids were in school full-time, and I was back out there. I worked a few days a week in a real office with other adults and built a portfolio of food-related essays that publications actually paid me to write. While I relished my years as a stay-at-home mom, this extra income allowed me to contribute to the household budget, and I felt renewed and whole in a way that I didn’t even know how much I missed.

In early 2020 when things shut down, my family and I shut down, too. At first, it was just supposed to be a few weeks. No big deal: After Spring Break (our trip was canceled like everything else), we’d be back.

Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way.

The office shut down, and then my role was eliminated. The food site I wrote for ‘changed directions’ and that went away, too.

My days focused on figuring out the school situation at home, watching birds from the front porch each evening, and playing UNO Wednesdays on family game night. As the weather got warmer, we played bags in the backyard and splashed in the sprinkler. Summer turned to fall and then winter. We celebrated birthdays and holidays with much smaller groups. We rang in the New Year with gratitude for making it through the year, safe and together

That’s not to say that things were perfect. I was scared for my husband, who went to work in person every day through the worst of the pandemic. I worried about my family in other states. I attempted to write but found myself uninspired, unfocused. I tried to keep a brave face, but I hid and cried on many nights. We sometimes got on each other’s nerves, but most of the time I felt lucky in so many ways to have this time with my boys.

When things shut down, I circled the wagons and did all I could to keep them safe and well.

But something unexpected happened during the past year and a half: My kids grew up.

When all of this started, they were just 8 and 6; my older son turns 10 this summer. Ten. Double-digits. His little brother is 7 (and a half, he will remind you, don’t forget the half).

It seems impossible that my big boy is on the edge of teenager-ism, but there he is, as nearly as tall as one of his grandmothers, a smart and handsome young man, no longer a little boy. He’s gifted in eye-rolling, sarcasm, and the unexpected emotional outburst. He wants to walk alone to school (it's only four blocks), and has requested a cell phone for Christmas. My younger son has a very specific sense of fashion and is better at using his Google Meet interface than I am. He explains the intricacies of baseball to me and recites the powers of Pokémon creatures on demand. As I feel them pulling away and being independent, it’s all I can do not to grab them and lock them in again: My boys, my husband, all of us. Together, alone together, where it’s safe.

After all these months of keeping us so close, how am I expected to simply let them go? How am I supposed to go out in the world again?

The memory of feeling complete that I experienced when I re-entered the world of adults gnaws at the edges of my mind, now that there’s room for any thoughts outside of pure survival instinct to live. I’ve started to carve out some new professional paths, assignments I might not have found had the office job continued. While it’s uncharted territory for me, I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I'm learning to embrace the rush of putting myself out there again. I feel that sense of fulfillment coming back in little bursts of productivity, in between anxiety attacks and pushing back that whole imposter syndrome thing.

Even though it's frankly terrifying, I’m also committed to allowing my kids to do more now that the world is open again. A recent piece in the Washington Post by a former CIA intelligence analyst turned Mom suggests that kids can and should be given more independence, from learning to use knives to navigating cities on their own.

While I’m not sure I’ll be ready to drop them off downtown with a map, as her teenagers do, but we can talk about that whole walk to school thing in the fall.

Maybe I’ll follow just a few blocks behind.