Letting Go
Adulting is so hard, y’all. It has taken me 40 years to figure out that none of us know what we are doing. We are all just bumping along, hoping that no one else notices that we have no idea of what is going on, faking it until we make it. If we get lucky, we make some good decisions along the way and strike a few gold mines. I am a big believer that a large part of what happens to us in life is luck. Hard work counts for a lot, but I know that I have ended up where I am in large part because I just happened to be in the right place at the right time more times than not.
You know what else is hard? Parenting. It’s sooooo hard. In fact, it is so incredibly difficult that I constructed my entire blog upon the fact that I am really terrible at it. Granted, I have my days when I feel like Super Mom, when the laundry is caught up and the snacks are well-received and my kids are happy enough. I look around and feel like I have it all together, that I have hit the jackpot and figured it all out and look at me go! But more often than not, I feel like a speeding train, hell bent on a collision course that is completely out of my control. I’m barely even steering the ship. How do people survive having children? How do they get through 18 years of parenting and still feel sane at the end of it? Does anyone look back and think, “Wow, that was so easy!”?
My eldest child graduated high school last month. I was such a sad mess of a mom for the entire year leading up to it. Part of me struggled with the fact that my first baby was soon to be an adult, old enough to make her own decisions, right or wrong. Another part of me just felt sad that this part of my life was over, and I mourned for all of the ordinary, monotonous days that had passed by without me ever really noticing them. I couldn’t look at pictures from when she was little without feeling complete angst that the little girl in the photos is old enough to drive and vote and go to college. What struck me completely by surprise is that on the day of graduation, I didn’t even cry. Not a single, solitary tear. Maybe it was just the stress of the day, trying to get everyone to where they needed to be by the time they needed to be there, or maybe I was just finished with being weepy. Who knows? But graduation came and went, and I was done with it all. I just didn’t want to cry anymore.
Like any mom, I worry that I haven’t done enough. What if I haven’t taught enough of the important lessons? What if I forgot to give her the number to roadside assistance? Did I tell her not to throw water on a grease fire? Does she know that she has always been the most important person in the world to me? Did I do enough to show her? Letting go is a tricky thing. You have to trust that you have put in the work, that you have given your child the ability to make good decisions, that you have taught her enough to be smarter than you were at her age. You have to give her room to breathe and the freedom to spread her wings, while also making sure that she knows that she can always come back to you when things aren’t what she expected.
It has taken me a long time to find my happy, to feel like I was at least doing some of the things right. As I entered my fourth decade, I did a complete about-face in my career. I went back to school. I decided that my story wasn’t over yet. For me, being 18 years old was seemingly centuries ago, and I am trying to remember my much younger self as I watch my daughter navigate this time in her life. It’s difficult to have the world at your fingertips and yet feel like it isn’t quite ready for you yet. Waiting desperately for your life to begin but also feeling like you’re standing completely still while everything happens around you but never to you.
This is the hardest part, isn’t it? The watching and knowing and hoping and praying that it all turns out okay.
Does this part ever get easier?
