Separation anxiety sucks, but it's worth it

Separation anxiety is such a real, painful, emotional, yet wonderful thing. How wonderful is it to love someone or be loved by someone so much that it physically pains you to be away from them? 

I don't know if I remember the emotions or just the stories about it, but I know it's been a thing for me since I was in preschool. My mother or my grandparents would drop me off at The Learning Tree and I would cry and say, "If you love me, you won't leave me!" and proceed to lose my mind, as I watched them drive off from the window in the classroom. 

I know once I was old enough to go to summer camp, it was definitely a thing. I hated being dropped off by my mom at the YMCA. Some kids love summer camp, but I dreaded it. At night, I couldn't sleep because I was so upset and anxious about being left there the following morning. 

Even as an adult, the anxiety I suffered from being away from my son (who at the time was three) while I was at the police academy was torturous. So now that I see my kids going through it, I'm glad I can understand what they're feeling. 

Just this week, my parents came to visit for a few days. They live twelve hours away, and I can count on one hand the times I've seen them in the past four or five years. My littlest hasn't shown any signs of separation anxiety to this point, well, because we've never been separated. But holy cow, for the first time, even if I was in the room, he was crying for me. And the big one, well, my parents leave tomorrow and he's currently crying himself to sleep right now. Like snotty, hyperventilating crying. 

Bless them. They both know only that they love these people so much that the thought of being away from them is so taxing. I get it. Even now, while I've learned to deal with it, by mostly utilizing technology, being away from my mom is HARD. Sometimes, when things are rough, when you're just over a crappy day, all you want is your mom. 

Being apart is hard. Goodbyes are hard. But the emotions and the anxiety, the pain of being apart just means that we love each other so deeply.