It was a sunny day, literally and figuratively, when we dropped our Oldest off at college. And not a suffocating sunny, which characterizes so much of parenting summer in the South. But a sunny that let you breath, a sunny that was happy to love shine from a distance.
Oldest and my husband, Rush, had done a meticulous job planning for this day. They’d devised college packing schedules and home storage solutions and, on the day we left, a Tetrus-like square of baskets, bins, and stowaway Build-a-Bears. The three of us drove away, trunk heavy and moods light.
The move-in was so ordinary as to be boring. The nearest we got to crisis was when I suggested she use her desk as a desk and not a vanity. We picked up lunch while she decided. We ate salads together in the common room. We said goodbye in a parking lot. She walked away and didn’t look back. I know this because Rush filmed her.
We were so proud—of her, of us, for doing what we thought was the whole hoped-for telos of this parent thing: loving and relinquishing.
Only you wouldn’t know this is the whole point of parenting, the whole point of human-ing, from some people’s faces. When I tell them how nice it is to no longer be legally responsible for her decisions. Or when I go on too long about how relaxing it is to see less food in the refrigerator. Geez! their faces read. Easy on the growing-up-glee!
My favorite HGTV stars might be aghast, too. Jeremiah Brent squeezes his gorgeous children and sheds a gorgeous tear at even the thought of them not being small forever. Ben and Erin Napier reflect on how when their children were born they thought, 18 summers. They had 18 summers to make childhood memories.
Oh, loves, I want to tell them. The pressure. And, also, Give it time. Adult children are pretty magical, too.
Maybe it’s because I was never a small children fan myself (see: story of adopting three school-aged kids). Or maybe it’s because I’m five months shy of forty and fighting the anti-aging aggression. But I think the two are related. I think beneath the desire to keep our children small (and young) lies our own fear of growing big (and old).
Because we can’t as easily control the bigness, theirs or ours.
I can’t control that Oldest has officially joined a sorority or suddenly wants to become a dentist or really likes a country artist because “he served his country” any more than I can control the growing mysteries in me. Like how I’m unofficially on a break from church or gradually want to become a nondrinker or, okay, really like Zach Bryan, too—or at least his moody new album.
So, sure, the bigness can be scary. But the bigness can be freeing, too. Like, it’s so scary obvious you’re not in control of the bigness that it frees you from the striving. So, you stop curating. You stop counting. You start breathing, loving (on the inhale) and relinquishing (on the exhale).
Now, I’m not saying the telos for every parent is that their kid goes to college, or lives on their own, or even masters the art of the indifferent goodbye. What I am saying is that adulthood is an outrageously undercelebrated outcome of childhood. That, truly, we’d be lucky to have children who went from small to big, in body and/or self.
That we’d be lucky to do the same.
Oldest was home recently for Fall Break. She slept in a new room, the one I’ve turned into an office since she left. Rush painted the whole thing, base boards to ceiling, my favorite color of evergreen. And, no, I will not shut up about it. I am not sorry to take up space in her absence.
But my favorite moment of Oldest’s visit was one I loved observed from a distance. Oldest was in the kitchen one morning, lecturing her middle sister. About how nasty it was that Middle left hair in the shower drain. About how if Middle wanted more lemon juice, she had better put it on the grocery list.
And, I thought to myself, Thank God.
Another adult in the house.
XO,
Erin
P.S. One of my favorite colleagues (and parent of children, big and small) has written a new book. Love Memory: A Memoir and A Practice by Fatimah Salleh is a series of reflections on what happens when we shut up long enough to listen to our big life. This book is an invitation to pause, to remember, to commit. Not to slow time but to mark time. You won’t be able to put it down.
P.P.S. With less kids under my roof, I have more attention to give to my marriage. (Oh, hello.) Looking forward to doing so with the help of another new book from colleagues, Side by Side: The Sacred Art of Couples Aging With Wisdom & Love by Caryl and Jay Casbon. Framed as a series of interviews with some of the best adults I know (many who are fellow Courage & Renewal Facilitators), this book is sure to be gold.
P.P.P.S. I recently finished Holly Whitaker’s Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice Not to Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol and it has left me feeling the biggest I have in years. I’m not committing to never drinking again, but I am for the first time in a long while drinking less, and it is making me feel unruly with possibility. And, also, hopeful that I’m on my way to a less painful aging.
Love this post, Erin, and your new evergreen walls! And the striked-out words! When my one-and-only child went off to college on one coast, I moved to the other coast, and was really happy to eat standing up in my own kitchen with nobody else to worry about for a change. Thanks for the shout out about Side by Side: The Sacred Art of Couples Aging with Wisdom & Love -- it's a great book about marriages no matter what your age or length of marriage.
I love this post and it had me nodding along, YES....YES.....YES. The cycles we go through in relinquishing and loving; when parenting our kids and ourselves, over and over again. Wow. This landed. Thanks, Erin.