We went on a great American family vacation this week and I found myself fighting a tiny sadness inside. A sadness that could evaporate as soon as I watch my daughter loop her arm through my husband’s arm as we walk, in moments while they play in the hotel pool, or as soon as I feel the joy of us all laughing together at the same time. But it was there, twisting around in my gut, trying to take root. I willed it away— moment by moment.

Because every trip feels like a big trip- and you think about all the trips you took for granted when they were tiny (the trips and the people) and could fit in your arms. You think of all the meals you’ve served at a hotel room coffee table or reaching back to a car seat. All the bathing suits you’ve pulled off wiggling bodies after a dunk in the hotel pool, all the times you heard their snores a bed away and thought, “They are going to sleep well tonight.”

The tiny sadness looms. It’s like a little gremlin of the passage of time. It tells you to take a deep breath on hard days and to throw caution to the wind on great ones. It—along with your very sore legs— tells you that you are getting older and you can’t manage what you used to. But it also tells you to think about the little ones they are, here, today— and not look ahead or behind— too wistfully.

The tiny sadness is not actually not sadness though. It’s just love. It’s the love that crept into your heart the day you first heard someone call you Mommy. It’s the same love that warms you when you identify yourself as “Cece’s Mom” when you have not called her Cece her entire life.

Tiny sadness is just love dressed up. It’s donning a fancy vacation suit that you roll out the red carpet for. Tiny sadness parades around and says, “You won’t forget this, don’t worry.” And you want to believe it.

So as you drive the car and hear the Goldfish bag crinkle in the back seat. As you look in the rear view mirror and see them laughing with each other— You come to know this: Love sometimes feels like sadness and sadness sometimes feels like love. And they will coexist, deep in your belly, in many more trips, and milestones, and moments in the coming years.

But it will stay tiny, and let you have the vacation you imagined and the chats you had hoped for. It will let you sleep like a rock and wake to a cuddle. Sometimes, the tiny sadness knows just what you need.

Don’t fight the tiny sadness. Because when it’s there, we stop more. We also appreciate more, laugh more, see more— and what’s most important, of course, we love more.