tLately, I have been really struggling with missing our nearly 15-year-old even while she’s in the house still with us. I think the reality of her being in high school has really proved time is not slowing, no matter what. I am grieving her leaving and the feelings can swallow me up. While she’s technically not our oldest, she took on that role pretty much from the start. Our oldest has severe disabilities and is infant-like in most areas so when she came around 2 years later she stepped into a strange familial position, the younger-older sister. And her life has been like that from the start, similar to others, yet totally different.
She’s responsible, mature beyond her age, says good morning and asks me how my day was, she writes me beautiful letters for my birthday, and gets me gifts that I truly wanted, she asks me to make tik toks with her and teaches me the moves (which is painfully awful), she’s absolutely hilarious and is constantly smiling and can give anyone a concussion with her volleyball kills. We are often complimented on our raising of her, yet I take very little credit. She’s just good. She was born good and is good. She’s my friend and my daughter and I feel so much joy in her presence. Yet in that upswing of joy, I feel this dread. These days are numbered. She has big dreams and all I want for her is to pursue them, but a little voice in me is asking her to please stay, don’t go. A voice I would never give power to, but a voice in me swirls within.
She can burst through the doors and asks for ridiculous things at all the wrong times and I can be annoyed and short with her. You should plan better. No, you don’t need makeup wipes at 8pm on a Wednesday night. No, we don’t need Dutch Bros right now. But when she catches me at the right moment I say “sure”, we hop in the car, she picks the playlist and we sing, and we talk about her friends, and volleyball, her teachers and her crushes. We laugh and goof around but then I think soon she’ll hop in the car and do these things with her friends, or even alone and I am crushed.
It’s like we are fighting the same time frame, she is constantly telling me how many months until she gets her permit and license and as her joy builds mine fades. I am excited for her, I truly am and a little excited for me too because this will give her some independence and give me some help with errands, but I’d stick her butt back in a booster seat and run all the errands myself instead if I ultimately had that choice. And while I have other kids following up behind her, I won’t have an empty nest for many years, she’ll leave a huge part of nest empty.
I know generations before always say hold on to these days, don’t take it for granted, you’ll miss this and when they are small you wonder will I really? On those long days, the days that you just want to crawl in bed and can’t believe you have to do it all again tomorrow, you may not cherish them. Then they’ll have these moments where you just capture them in all that makes them who they are and your heart will burst with joy and love and pride and again that dread. That dread that this too will change. This too will never be like this again. But here I am crying, I do cherish it. I don’t take it for granted! But if you cherish it or not it is all still fleeting. I just want to capture these next few years in some kind of glass globe that I am able to shake and see and feel how these days filled my tank. How having all my kids home under one roof will always be the good old days and while I know we will move forward and enjoy the good parts of the new days, I also know my heart will always long for this right here, right now.
