The years...
It was October 2002, just 17 years ago. Saying it seems like it was SO LONG ago.... but living it, it happened yesterday. Yesterday, I gave birth to Stevie Lynn. Yesterday, I took her to Kindergarten for the first time. Yesterday, she graduated 8th grade. Yesterday was her last first day of grade school. But Thursday? October 17th? Thursday will be the last day I celebrate a birthday with my "little girl." Thursday she'll be 17. Next year? Next year I'll be "celebrating" her adulthood. Dear Lord, just typing it puts the biggest lump in my throat.
I was asked once, when Stevie was younger and before I was married, what the hardest part of single parenting was. My answer, was that I had no one to share her milestones with. When she bursted out in those uncontrollable infant giggles, there was no one to catch the love that spilled over from my heart. When she got her first tooth, rolled over, crawled, or walked for the first time... no one was around to love those moments as much as me. Carrying all of that happiness was HEAVY!
Now that I've survived single parenting... and I've had the love of my life to share my girls with since Stevie was 3... the hardest part of parenting, hands down, is learning to let go. And it starts so much earlier than Senior year of high school. It starts at age 8, when your child tells you that the sparkly shorts (that she would have LOVED a week earlier) are now too sparkly. Or that the overalls your daughter wore to school religiously were no banned from her wardrobe because a child called her farmer girl. It starts at age 11 when your middle schooler is learning to find who she truly is... when she develops a love of a certain taste of music or a certain style of clothing that you might not necessarily agree with but must embrace because it's your job as a parent to support certain choices and choose battles wisely.
Learning to let go is such a delicate dance. You don't want to give too much freedom too early because you're still worried so much about their safety and their maturity and they're ability to handle the independence and responsibility that they crave. It's urging your senior to apply for scholarships without focusing so hard that you ultimately drive her into a negative mindset where she wants to forget college all together. It's reiterating the importance to your 12 year old that she's in 6th grade now and math class requires a little studying if she intends to pass... and learning to walk away and let her either study or fail and learn from that mistake. It's NOT giving up on your 9 year old because she's the youngest and you're just too tired to care anymore!
The hardest part of parenting is not the loss of sleep and the financial instability that accompanies diapers and formula and daycare... The hardest part is YOUR test at the end... where your children are facing finish lines right and left and you're standing there waiting to see if they'll cross them and keep running or if they'll fall short and need you to pick them up and dust them off so they can try again. It's loving... not too much but just enough that they will always want to come back for more. The hardest part is having to do all of this without a book of instructions... but rather just by tasting, and feeling, and praying. Praying that you'll get it right eventually.
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