It's been a (whole lotta) minute(s) since I've written anything but I've been thinking as we slowly start to scatter again ...
You can wish for a confirmation email that the Universe has your order every time you release your child into the wild. “Hello, your order’s in the kitchen! Track the status of your order here.”
Or, you can remember that contract provision came baked in when you got their birth certificate. We’ve never been their sole carer. Monsters under the bed. Mountains in real life. It’s all a risk and it's all above our pay grade.
You can anticipate a whole bunch of things your child might do or say, and worry about a thousand more things someone or something could do or say to them. “Danger. High voltage. Child on my mind.”
Or, you can position yourself to be surprised by them and rewire your thoughts to new patterns that are quieter then what the world is shouting or moaning about.
Your child may be a thousand miles away or in the next room, but their thoughts are and have always been beyond our reach. Their hunger and need for us to make them food, on the other hand, cannot be dodged.
They give us words. Sometimes so many words, our heads combust, and other times so few words, our hearts fold in on itself. But their thoughts live under their own jurisdiction, evolving with each new experience, only a fraction of them turning into things said out loud and within our earshot.
You can be skilled in your ability to detect your child’s mood in the brevity of a grunt or text, but clueless to how rarely you are the source of them.
You can provide your child a good education, but if you obsess over the best possible one, you may inadvertently paper over a dream that will carry them farther than any official piece of paper.
You can warn them about the agony of a broken heart, even see one coming before they do, or you can tell them the road to love is littered with micro and macro sacrifices but also where all the best blessings are found. A road you can't ride shotgun but one not to be missed.
You can give them a pep talk and your confidence, but not confidence itself. That they have to find for themselves. Not once and for all, but again and again, just like it happens for us.
You can point out a thousand things you child still doesn’t know, or remind them of something they already do but got buried in the rubble of having to remember so much.
You can tell them to do it right now or do it the right way, which will get reinforced wherever they go because a sense of urgency and excellence are table stakes for good living. Or, you can honestly tell them your predictions are meaningless but your bet is always ALL IN on them.