Parenthood

I am one in a legion of many, I am a parent. Worse than that I am a mother! You remember what mothers are, we are that half of the parent team that are blamed for all the ills when our children one day lay down at a therapist's office and complain about their lives. We are the ones that seem to have some inexplicable sense of knowing where all things are, for every member of the family. Unfortunately, we are the brunt of many jokes when we become in-laws. Some of us can be over bearing, over protective, and over indulgent, but what we all have in common is that relentless, never ending job, with the worse pay known to man, of raising future adults.

I am preparing to take my daughter to visit a college. These visits are to help shape her decision regarding her future, which frankly hadn't really hit me until a few moments ago. It just came down on me like a ton of bricks that my little chick is leaving the nest. I don't say preparing because the reality is that I have been preparing her since birth. 

I am blessed to have had the great fortune of having this person, my child, grace my life as she has. She is beautiful, intelligent, stubborn and outspoken. Qualities, that as much as I sometimes hate to admit to myself, she got honestly (the not so nice ones from me). My child is kind, considerate of others, with the exception at times being me. This is completely natural and understanding, after all she is not perfect, just close enough to perfection.

So here I am, with the great realization that next year at this time she will be in the midst of embarking on a journey that she will make mostly on her own with me in the distance. No longer on the sidelines, ready to scoop her up if she fell, no longer in front leading her by her hand. She will be doing this with the tools I have tried to give her and now I have to find a new role within her life and the definition of mother.

Still my job is not done, a mother's job never is. I have many new milestones to look forward to. Graduation, her first apartment, a wedding and God willing to see her step into this role of motherhood, one day herself. Scary thought isn't it. I just have to learn to let go of the child and wait on the future of the young woman, who hopefully will still need her mom from time to time.

When I look into those big brown eyes, I still see the baby they placed in my arms. Taking her to college I see the five year old, whose bus I followed on her first day in kindergarten. I kid you not, I am anxious and perhaps a bit wistful that the days where I was a Goddess in her eyes, incapable of mistakes and omnipotent knowing all the answers to her endless queries are behind me now. She will forever make me proud in all she endeavors, and in return makes me proud of a job well done, in rearing her. 

Funny though, I am still looking for the manual that should have come with her at birth, because somewhere there should be a reset button!

Quote for the day and please read and think on this one; "The moment a child is born; the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother never. The mother is something absolutely new."~Rajneesh