Our boys are exactly eleven years and eleven days apart in age. Our youngest middle child is officially in his last year of single digits, and our oldest is on his last week of officially being a teenager.
I have spent much of my earlier years caught in the chaos of childhood, the mayhem of raising kids while working, the overwhelm of trying to juggle it all, and I have wished away many many seasons and years in my quest to just survive the day at hand... the moment... the season I was currently lost and drowning in... We had a house with a barking dog, a crying colicky baby, and a pre-teen with an attitude. We had a bathroom bumping and bustling with potty training and junior high acne. Toddlers and Teenagers. Adoption and split family sharing. I transitioned from full time corporate america to starting and growing my own business. I would then transition back into the work world, while still juggling a home business, while my husband went from corporate work to starting and growing his own business. Phew. Those were some really hard days and years.
And then something happened... our oldest graduated from High School, moved out, and started college. Boom. Eighteen plus years had passed, my time with him under my wings and under our roof was over. It was a hard season for this mama... I was dealing with a broken heart from the loss of our dear Faith MaryJo, and only weeks later watching him venture out on his own.
Had I done enough? Had I parented well enough? Had I taught him everything he needed to know? When would I stop missing and worrying about him so much?
I had wished away and blinked a few too many times, and he went from newborn to nearly adult right before my eyes, and I had almost missed it all. My heart ached for all that I'd wished away, all that I'd been too busy to really see, too focused on myself and my work to really fully engage on my real job in front of me. Raising and investing in my family.
It would take losing a child and watching another one move out before I would fully come to grips with the reality that I needed to simply stop wishing it all away. I needed to stop. To breath. To slow down. To see - to really see. I needed to start living in the absolute here and now of life rather than in the ahead and beyond hopes of unknown tomorrows. Because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We have today - we have right now, and that is where we need to fully live and love and be present in. And that is a hard concept and reality for me some days.
Living here and now is needing to live intentionally in the moment, in the hard, in the real, in the messy - and embracing and celebrating it for all it is and all we have been given. And some days… most days… for me at least, that is not easy. That has to be intentionally chosen, sought after, found, held tightly…
I find myself over and over being grateful for this reality, this wake up call. I find myself over and over repeating “Do not wish this moment away! Do not wish this moment away!” when I am in another heated debate over homework and spelling words, when I am the taxi driver dropping off here and there, when I’m the one doing all the laundry and meals and cleaning, when our nine year old is up before dawn on the weekends and won’t get out of bed on school days…
All this mess, all this chaos is actually a gift. It’s not always wrapped up pretty and shining with sparkles and ribbons and grand exploding confetti… but it is a gift none-the-less.
Another crazy reality I’m finding out - parenting adult children is hard... wowsa! Much harder than I ever anticipated. It’s parenting, but on an entirely different playing field. I can see now why my mom and dad have such grey hair… It’s living on this very fine line of loving and letting go, of encouraging and supporting while allowing mistakes and failures. It’s being available and helpful without being a hovering helicopter. It’s about waiting to be remembered, waiting to be visited, waiting to be included while not being in the know, not being in charge, not getting the final say (or any say at all for that matter). It’s about helping guide tough decisions wisely, about encouraging responsibility and respect without making it a requirement. It’s about advocating and advising but not overshadowing and micromanaging. Loving well while letting go well. Tricky, tricky, tricky business I tell ya. And at the end of the day, it’s so so so rewarding and filling watching their successes and joy, hearing their laughter and stories, getting those unexpected hugs and thanks, and so so hard hanging out in the shadows and valleys of the slightly distant background of their full speed ahead lives.
Parents, we’ve all heard it a million times - enjoy those kiddos while you can, they grow up too fast. We roll our eyes, we groan internally and think - if I got a dollar for every time I heard that I’d be a millionaire by now. But it’s true. It’s so so true.
My inability to get pregnant and weathering and waiting through that season, choosing adoption and weather and waiting through that season, losing our Faith MaryJo after double digit years of praying and pleading for a baby… ultimately gave me one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given. The gift of perspective, and reality, and resolve to stop wishing these moments away, even when I desperately want to… Slow, stop, sit, embrace, enjoy.
I will be the first to admit I still fail this mission each and every day… but I continue on each morning, vowing to be a little more successful today than I was yesterday, and trying to give myself the grace I need when day after day that reality does not happen.
I hope I am not the same mom today that I was during the first eighteen years I was a mom. I look back at my busy, my workaholic, my perfectionist, my overachieving, my unattainable expectations, my high stress behaviors from before and I am so sad that many of those are the memories that will be left in the mind of our oldest.
I’m still busy, I still work too much, I still deal with the beast of perfectionism, overachieving, and stress overload… but I have hopefully come a long long way from where I was once rooted and chained… It is my hope that as I emotionally bid farewell to these last days of being the mom of a teenager, that I will continue to be given the opportunity to invest and love and parent the amazing adult son he is becoming.
I pray I will always get to be his mom, the one he loves and calls and comes home to celebrate with and mourn with. I pray God will grant me another twenty years [X two plus please!!] to get to parent him and prove my love and his worth to.
I pray none of us wish away another minute, another day, another moment. We will wake up one day and the toddlers will be teenagers, and the teenagers will be young adults, and then the young adults will be married and parents to their own children…
May we all try live every day in the gift and tension of the here and now, the mighty and the momentous, the mundane and the tedious. May we all be given the opportunity and choose to fully receive the gift of clear vision, slow schedules, and magic in the immediate. So simple. So incredibly hard.
We will blink twice and they will be turning twenty. Time will not stop, time will not even hesitate or slow down to grant us one extra second. Don’t wish this moment away, even if you desperately want to.
And then something happened... our oldest graduated from High School, moved out, and started college. Boom. Eighteen plus years had passed, my time with him under my wings and under our roof was over. It was a hard season for this mama... I was dealing with a broken heart from the loss of our dear Faith MaryJo, and only weeks later watching him venture out on his own.
Had I done enough? Had I parented well enough? Had I taught him everything he needed to know? When would I stop missing and worrying about him so much?
I had wished away and blinked a few too many times, and he went from newborn to nearly adult right before my eyes, and I had almost missed it all. My heart ached for all that I'd wished away, all that I'd been too busy to really see, too focused on myself and my work to really fully engage on my real job in front of me. Raising and investing in my family.
It would take losing a child and watching another one move out before I would fully come to grips with the reality that I needed to simply stop wishing it all away. I needed to stop. To breath. To slow down. To see - to really see. I needed to start living in the absolute here and now of life rather than in the ahead and beyond hopes of unknown tomorrows. Because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We have today - we have right now, and that is where we need to fully live and love and be present in. And that is a hard concept and reality for me some days.
Living here and now is needing to live intentionally in the moment, in the hard, in the real, in the messy - and embracing and celebrating it for all it is and all we have been given. And some days… most days… for me at least, that is not easy. That has to be intentionally chosen, sought after, found, held tightly…
I find myself over and over being grateful for this reality, this wake up call. I find myself over and over repeating “Do not wish this moment away! Do not wish this moment away!” when I am in another heated debate over homework and spelling words, when I am the taxi driver dropping off here and there, when I’m the one doing all the laundry and meals and cleaning, when our nine year old is up before dawn on the weekends and won’t get out of bed on school days…
All this mess, all this chaos is actually a gift. It’s not always wrapped up pretty and shining with sparkles and ribbons and grand exploding confetti… but it is a gift none-the-less.
Another crazy reality I’m finding out - parenting adult children is hard... wowsa! Much harder than I ever anticipated. It’s parenting, but on an entirely different playing field. I can see now why my mom and dad have such grey hair… It’s living on this very fine line of loving and letting go, of encouraging and supporting while allowing mistakes and failures. It’s being available and helpful without being a hovering helicopter. It’s about waiting to be remembered, waiting to be visited, waiting to be included while not being in the know, not being in charge, not getting the final say (or any say at all for that matter). It’s about helping guide tough decisions wisely, about encouraging responsibility and respect without making it a requirement. It’s about advocating and advising but not overshadowing and micromanaging. Loving well while letting go well. Tricky, tricky, tricky business I tell ya. And at the end of the day, it’s so so so rewarding and filling watching their successes and joy, hearing their laughter and stories, getting those unexpected hugs and thanks, and so so hard hanging out in the shadows and valleys of the slightly distant background of their full speed ahead lives.
Parents, we’ve all heard it a million times - enjoy those kiddos while you can, they grow up too fast. We roll our eyes, we groan internally and think - if I got a dollar for every time I heard that I’d be a millionaire by now. But it’s true. It’s so so true.
My inability to get pregnant and weathering and waiting through that season, choosing adoption and weather and waiting through that season, losing our Faith MaryJo after double digit years of praying and pleading for a baby… ultimately gave me one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given. The gift of perspective, and reality, and resolve to stop wishing these moments away, even when I desperately want to… Slow, stop, sit, embrace, enjoy.
I will be the first to admit I still fail this mission each and every day… but I continue on each morning, vowing to be a little more successful today than I was yesterday, and trying to give myself the grace I need when day after day that reality does not happen.
I hope I am not the same mom today that I was during the first eighteen years I was a mom. I look back at my busy, my workaholic, my perfectionist, my overachieving, my unattainable expectations, my high stress behaviors from before and I am so sad that many of those are the memories that will be left in the mind of our oldest.
I’m still busy, I still work too much, I still deal with the beast of perfectionism, overachieving, and stress overload… but I have hopefully come a long long way from where I was once rooted and chained… It is my hope that as I emotionally bid farewell to these last days of being the mom of a teenager, that I will continue to be given the opportunity to invest and love and parent the amazing adult son he is becoming.
I pray I will always get to be his mom, the one he loves and calls and comes home to celebrate with and mourn with. I pray God will grant me another twenty years [X two plus please!!] to get to parent him and prove my love and his worth to.
I pray none of us wish away another minute, another day, another moment. We will wake up one day and the toddlers will be teenagers, and the teenagers will be young adults, and then the young adults will be married and parents to their own children…
May we all try live every day in the gift and tension of the here and now, the mighty and the momentous, the mundane and the tedious. May we all be given the opportunity and choose to fully receive the gift of clear vision, slow schedules, and magic in the immediate. So simple. So incredibly hard.
We will blink twice and they will be turning twenty. Time will not stop, time will not even hesitate or slow down to grant us one extra second. Don’t wish this moment away, even if you desperately want to.
Embrace the mess, capture the chaos, live in the love, and do whatever you have to dwell in the perfect presence of our right nows. You will never regret the moments and memories you didn't miss.
{ next blog post "The Cost of Keeping Connected" HERE }
{ previous blog post "The Doorway of Change" HERE }
{ next blog post "The Cost of Keeping Connected" HERE }
{ previous blog post "The Doorway of Change" HERE }
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