No one tells you what a shock it is when your child gets their first vehicle- thereby extracting themselves from the calendaring of your daily life. This extraction is far from entire, of course, but their new freedom allows them to come and go on a schedule that no longer requires your time for them to accomplish their goals. With the turn of a key, your purpose as a parent shifts from absolute provider to a supporting role of sorts. Sixteen years of habits, shifting with the swiftness of an automatic transmission.
You will still provide food and shelter, but not as much food because they now have a job and they go out to eat with their friends. You will still provide shelter, but not as much shelter because they’ll be sleeping over at a friends’ houses more often. Your advice is no longer sought first because they will have already unloaded to their friends so your thoughts become just another layer of consideration and really they just want you to listen so they can process everything that’s coming at them from the world. A world they are more immersed in than the four walls that have been the space where your love lives. And while your heart has been outside of your body since their first breath, it now lives beyond your reach.
They are learning to become adults. They are practicing living in deeper waters and sometimes they may choke because they aren’t as strong a swimmer as they believed and you may never know or they may come running back to your arms. But no one tells you how empty and eerily quiet your home becomes when your child has the freedom of their own car and that first job. How you must suddenly learn, with a swift immediacy, that the emptiness of your home is not an emptiness of your child’s heart.
Just when your house feels totally empty & your heart is aching for a hug- they will come barging in with stories and questions and friends and the ability to wipe out your pantry in 30 seconds flat. They’ll come home late and the next morning you’ll see them sleeping in their bed at 10 in the morning arms sprawled, hair a mess, and they’ll be a whisper of that sweet baby of the past. That child who would’ve already been up tearing through the house. That sweet little baby whose ass you would’ve had to wipe and fed them and taken them to the playground and answered 10,000 questions all before 9 AM.
But you did a good job mama and papa and now that sweet baby has found their friends and has found a first job and is learning to get around the world. It may seem like they don’t, but they still need you, even if it is not as apparent. They still want to be part of your life even if they don’t always say so. They’re simply pushing off the shallow end of the pool. They’re testing the waters and figuring out what they’re gonna be like as an adult. So give them a little space and let your little birdie fly. You will always be connected by the blood that runs through your veins. Let them know you care, listen more than you talk, learn who they are becoming and what they enjoy, ask questions that let them teach you and give them space to learn how to love you on their terms.
Spread Your Dreams 