The Emotional Seesaw of Letting Go (and Trying Not to Cry in Public)

This week has felt like standing with one foot in two different worlds, the world where my children still need me, and the world where my marriage and my own heart need tending too. Somehow, I’m expected to balance both without falling apart. Spoiler: I did fall apart… in a barber shop, of all places… because of course I did.

Matt started his first day of work this morning, day one of a five‑day induction. His nerves have been simmering for days, and they finally boiled over this morning, but he straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin, and walked out the door like a determined young man. I watched him go with that familiar cocktail of pride, panic, and “oh my word, when did he get so grown?”

And then the flat went quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you suddenly aware of your own breathing.

So, I’ve spent the day on his couch, half-watching TV, half-folding washing, ironing shirts, and keeping one eye on Joshua’s TEAMS notifications and sports groups. Every ping sends me firing off WhatsApps to Adrian like a long-distance air traffic controller. In between all of that, I check in on Michael too, because even when you’re 1,400 kilometres away, motherhood still expects you to know who ate what, who submitted what, and who’s alive.

Meanwhile, the flat still needs work. Contractors are coming and going, fixing this, adjusting that, asking questions Matt can’t answer because he’s at work pretending to be a functioning adult. So, I’m the one holding the fort, nodding wisely at things I don’t understand, and hoping no one asks me to “just check the breaker box.”

But the emotional seesaw didn’t start today.

It started on the 2nd of March, my wedding anniversary, a day Adrian and I didn’t spend together because he had to head back to Johannesburg. I chose to stay with Matt to help him settle in instead of going home with my husband. It was the right choice… but also the wrong one… but also the only one… but also the one that made me cry in a barber shop. You see the problem.

And with Adrian leaving next Monday for a month‑long business trip, the weight of that decision has been heavier than I expected.

So, there I was, taking Matt for a haircut, a simple, harmless errand, and while he sat in the chair looking like a grown man, I sat off to the side looking like a woman who’d just been told her dog had died. Tears, actual tears, quiet ones, but still. While I sent Adrian a voice note for our Anniversary, they started, and I found myself trying to pretend I had something in my eye. I’m sure the barber thought I’d received devastating news. Meanwhile, I was just a wife missing her husband and trying to love her family in all the places they currently are, even when those places pull her in opposite directions.

This season is full of these moments. Pride and sadness, excitement and fear. Love and longing, letting go and holding on. It’s messy and beautiful and, frankly, exhausting. No one warns you that parenting adult children requires this level of emotional cardio.

I head back home on Friday, and as the day approaches, I can feel another wobble coming. I’m happy, truly happy, to be going home to Adrian, Michael, and Joshua. I miss them. I miss my bed. I miss my husband.  I also know it’s going to be tough leaving one child behind. The flight back won’t be easy. The tears will probably come again. Letting go never becomes simple, it will just become familiar.

Still, I get a weekend with Adrian before he leaves again. A small pocket of time for just the two of us, a pause before the next stretch of distance.

Maybe that’s enough for now. Enough to steady me and remind me that even in the chaos of everyone growing and moving and becoming, love still finds its way through the cracks, sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter, and sometimes in the middle of a barber shop.