My seventeen year old daughter walked into the living-room where my husband and I were relaxing watching a TV show at 11:30pm and asked me to tuck her in... Who can refuse that.
She has grown so much these past few years and I know that now, she is beginning to realize she is closer than ever to adulthood.
One minute she's in the throws of a year long romantic relationship, with a boy a couple years older who is already "adulting" for the most part. And the next minute shes whining "Mom, please just cuddle me, but don't breathe in my face. "
She's our baby, our youngest of three. We each came into the relationship with an existing child, so we have his, mine and ours... she is the ours. She's the one we thought we could protect, since she would only be with us. No back and forth from family to family every other weekend. She was the one we thought would be more self assured, coming from married parents that love each other as well as her. She is the one, nine years younger than her siblings, who they call spoiled rotten.
Her life, for the most part, has been fairly easy. Fairly. Structured and grounded, we have only lived in two homes since she was born. We live in a fairly small town with good neighbors. We have a close group of friends and a large loving close family and she is blessed with four sets of grandparents, the older kids even a few more.
Yet, there was nothing I could do to protect her from the harshness of the real world. As hard as I tried, I couldn't protect her from seeing her brother in teenage rages while she was so small.. I couldn't protect her from the yelling that took place when he and I would get into a battle while I was driving and she was in her car-seat in the back of our van.
I couldn't protect her from the grief she felt and was exposed to when our very close family friends lost their 17 year old daughter in an auto accident. I couldn't protect her from the shock, sadness and confusion when just a year later, our neighbor, the father of one of her closest friends at the time and her baby sitter, took his own life. These things are real, This is life.
I couldn't protect her from the hurt when her closest friend was pulled from school without explanation in seventh grade, and wasn't allowed to communicate with her for months. That was the first time I saw loss affect her wholly. She was hurting, the emotions were raw. I couldn't protect her a few years later when her best friend of three years decided upon starting their junior year of high school that she wanted to end the friendship... but didn't come straight out and tell her.
I couldn't protect her when anxiety and depression took over her body and soul and she made the decision that she wanted to end her life, but was too scared to tell us, her parents, because she didn't want to disappoint us. So, we found out through the school counselor and she was admitted to her first of five inpatient hospital stays.
I couldn't protect her when out of the blue, on Easter Sunday, while driving home from the cabin, anxiety took her body and mind over so much that she was in full psychosis. She was scared that something was trying to get her. At 16, I held my little girl and she thrashed about, having what we were told later, Non-epileptic seizures. She spent three months scared, as did we, unsure if she'd ever be the same again. In and out of doctors, hospitals, so much medication and no real answers. We pulled her from school because she said she'd spent an entire class hour looking behind her compulsively at what she thought was getting her. Finally, in the hospital, they took her off all of the med's and our pastors visited her and prayed hands on her. She was released days later and has been better ever since.
Life happens, shit happens, real, painful, awful, shit. and we can't, nor should we try to protect our children from it all. They need to know hurt to feel true happiness, they need to learn loss to really appreciate what and who they have.
She called me into her room a couple weeks ago, after her first day of college as a high school senior, and said, "Mom, I don't think you understand how much I appreciate you. You are the best mom ever and I am so lucky to have you and Dad." For most parents, they would be waiting for the catch, the big question, like... "will you give me a thousand dollars?" but not me. This is a conversation over the past year that I have gotten used to. Then she laid in bed and talked to me and cried, "When I'm living on my own, who will tuck me in. Who will make my food, who will put money in my lunch account?" She was sincerely overwhelmed by it all.
She has been through a lot in her seventeen years. Not a lot of self-inflicted pain, like many teenagers deal with like drug use, addiction and running away... and not a lot of chaos caused by parents that many kids experience, like divorce and fighting and job loss and homelessness. She has though been through the emotional roller coaster of life, and as sensitive as she is, she has felt it all fully.
So, when I see the glimpse of the woman shes blossoming into, when I see the angsty teen at times, and when I get to snuggle my fully grown baby girl as she falls asleep dealing with her emotions of the day, I appreciate it. I enjoy it... I revel in it.
She said to me tonight, "only six more months mom, and I will be an adult and will be on my own.."I know her mind is feeling the excitement as well as the fear of the reality of that. I reminded her, "You know, you can live here for a while longer and go to college locally." "Yeah" she says, "but I don't want to, I want to experience real college life"
I cherish these moments. I have loved every age she has been, and I love that my baby girl is getting ready to attack the world with her independence, yet, she is still willing to cuddle with her Momma and share her fears as well as her dreams. I thank God daily for all three of my kids, my grand-babies and my husband. Today, I am feeling the reality of a new chapter in our lives as parents.
When asked if I'm going to be sad as an empty-nester, I say "Hell No!" I have been a parent longer than I have been an adult! My husband and I don't know life with each other without having kids. In the back of my mind though, I am scared. I am scared she might not need me anymore and scared of the day she no longer wants to be tucked in and cuddled... by me.
*Note - This was written almost a year ago...
Today, she's fully experiencing college/dorm life at a private college in Iowa. Takes me half a day to drive there... and today, more than ever, she's my support and confidante as I am her safe place to process life, when she has time.
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