My View From the Lobby Window.

A Lesson I Never Expected to Learn

I can still see the scene as if it were sealed in glass.

The first day of kindergarten. A new school, in a new state, after a move that had upended everything familiar. I stood inside the building, forehead nearly resting against the window, peering out at the playground. My son, with his too-big backpack, glasses, big curly hair, batman t-shirt, wandered quietly across the wood chips while clusters of children formed in groups that he was on the outside of—laughing, loud, already belonging.

He looked so confused. So lost. So alone.

And that’s when the tears began to roll—hot, heavy, uninvited. I wasn’t just watching him; I was watching every fear I had as a mother come to life, playing out below me like a scene designed to punish me. You moved him. You took him away from everything he knew. You did this. The chorus in my head was merciless.

I didn’t cry because he looked sad.

I cried because I felt sad.

In that moment I was convinced I had disrupted his world, stolen his roots, and set him adrift. I stood there aching with guilt, projecting my loneliness, my fear of not belonging, my discomfort with starting over—right onto that little boy wandering the playground.

Hours later, when I picked him up, I braced myself for proof that I had ruined his life.

Instead, he climbed into the car.  Not lots of expression as was typical for him.  What was your favorite part of the day?  I asked.  Without hesitation, his answer. 

“Recess”.  My ears perked up. 

“Did you play with some of the other kids?”

“No. The swings were cool and walking around was fun”

I remember staring at him, stunned.

He wasn’t lonely.

He wasn’t lost.

He wasn’t devastated or traumatized or replaying a sad playground montage in his head the way I had all afternoon. He was fine—better than fine. He had simply… started a day. Had an experience. Moved on.

The only person who had suffered that morning was me.

The Lesson I Didn’t Know I Needed

It took me years—and a career—to name what happened that day:

I wasn’t seeing him. I was seeing me, reflected onto him.

I had mapped my nervous system onto his story. My meaning. My emotion. My interpretation.

He wasn’t lost. I felt lost.

He wasn’t alone. I felt alone.

He wasn’t struggling. I was struggling.

That day, I learned one of the most humbling truths of motherhood:

Our children live their lives, and we narrate them through our own unfinished chapters.

It doesn’t make us bad moms. It makes us human.

But if we’re not aware of it, guilt becomes our storyteller—and guilt is an unreliable narrator.

He Was Fine All Along

Looking back, I wish I could hug the mother at that window—the one silently dissolving behind the glass. I’d tell her:

He’s okay. He’s resilient. He belongs wherever he goes.

And so do you.

That moment was never about his readiness for the world.

It was about mine.

Xo,

Deborah