A good friend recently shared this on Facebook. Her oldest is getting ready to graduate from high school & will be off to his first year of college in the fall. I didn't write these words, but I can relate to every single one of them.
Still... even though Bryn is getting ready to finish up her sophomore year at Mizzou.
The quiet house is sometimes deafening.
Childhood goes by right before your eyes.
As slow as the days & nights sometimes feel... as long as those weekends sitting in a gym watching volleyball can be... I'd give anything just to experience some of those moments again.
And yet... I also equally love the moments we still get with each other... like Mom's Weekend at Mizzou... or even like that time she recently came to my strength class and complained every day how sore she was. And then 3 days later started crying in the car because she was so sore that she couldn't sleep and even Advil wasn't helping. And then I had to try to be empathetic and not laugh... even though I was secretly proud of myself for kicking her ass. LOL
I digress.
While I sometimes will still introduce her to people as "my little girl" (you know... the one who's way taller than me & will be 20 years old in June)... I'm more proud than I can possibly say that she doesn't need me as much anymore... that she's independent just like her parents raised her to be.
And she's just as determined to do well in school, as she is determined to have fun there too.
I mean... she is my daughter.
But for those of you who are getting ready to send yours out the door soon, it is possible that you'll still be close even if it's from afar and you no longer see each other in the same house every day.
I miss her like crazy, but we are still very close.
Sometimes we act more like sisters, but this stage of life is really good too.
And no matter how old she gets or where life takes her, she'll always be my little girl.
My really cool, amazing, incredibly smart, funny, strong, beautiful little girl.
Truly blessed.
XOXO
One day they’re born.
And you feel like you have forever. Their little body fits into your lap, their hand tucked in yours, their head nestles into your shoulder. So small, so simple, so sweet. The years seem so many, the moments endless. Eighteen years feels forever.
Yet, they grow.
Time moves and ebbs and flows and things change and in it all even though time at moments seems to stand still – there it goes – moving.
They start out needing us so much. Feeding them and clothing them. Picking them up and helping with homework and dropping them off and teaching them to tie shoes or parallel park or how to multiply.
Sometimes the change is subtle and sometimes it’s crazy. A shift here, some bravery there, and in it all they don’t stay small.
We go to sleep listening for them. For a cough, the door to open, for that whisper of “mom are you awake?” when we clearly weren’t.
They stop needing to hold your hand across the street and find friends and do daring things and read and grow up. The clothes are donated, the play food let go, the training wheels discarded, the new freedoms of growing up gained.
And they grow and grow and grow. The limits morph and you stay up late again, not pacing the floor helping them get to sleep, but pacing the floor waiting for them to come home.
Your heart has grown big and ached and been broken and been proud and has this love that was once unimaginable.
And then one day, they close the door and it is the last time. The last time home with you in it is, well, home. Tears fall – joy and sadness and celebration and “where in the world did time go?”
That little one who fit in your arms so tightly now is walking out, walking away, growing up.
On their own.
Oh don’t get me wrong – It will always be home. You are home for them. But it’s not the same. Maybe we don’t talk about that space – that growing up, letting go space – when our homes, instead of becoming noisier, become the opposite.
Quiet.
In life there is that moment, that gut-wrenching place of motherhood that is both bittersweet and joyful when that little one you raised leaves.
It is a fierce bravery to let them go. It’s where we tuck back the tears and shout, “Way to go! You can do it!” But inside, sometimes we are whispering to ourselves the same thing.
You can do it.
You can love and give and in it all let them go.
We all want it. We want them to be successful, to have a voice, to find love, to pursue their dreams. Childhood is this place of pushing them to be more and speak up and live.
Letting go is the deepest love of all.
We don’t cling so tightly because we want them to fly.
And in that flying, that letting go, we become the hero. We look back and see all the bandages placed and late nights and slammed doors and giving and loving and the courage it took to say, “fly, sweet child, fly.”
From me.
The mom always learning to let go.
Holding her once little one in her arms.
~Rachel
Finding Joy
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