It’s cracking my heart wide open
Last weekend, I dropped my daughter, Macartney, off at Colorado State to start her sophomore year.
Last weekend, I dropped my daughter, Macartney, off at Colorado State to start her sophomore year. She’s in an off-campus apartment now, with her own keys and her own living room. I swear it feels like I blinked, and she went from her first day of kindergarten to stocking up on Trader Joe’s pork buns and coffee.
She’s growing up so fast, and I couldn’t be prouder. But oh, it’s tough to let go. I’ve heard people say that the most difficult part of parenthood is raising the ones you can’t live without, to live without you. That’s hitting me hard right now.
I couldn’t help but think about my own college years, when my relationship with my mother was fraught at best. My mother led with fear because that’s what she was taught. Fear of what people thought, fear of what could go wrong, fear of not being enough. Her narcissism left me internalizing the idea that love came tethered to worry and criticism. I carried that fear for a long time.
But this weekend, as I stood in the kitchen of Macartney’s new apartment watching her interact with her roommate and her roommate’s parents, I saw something different. She doesn’t carry my mother’s fear. She carries my love.
People often call her my mini-me because we look so much alike. But the truth is, she’s not my reflection. The truth is, she’s my legacy, not my shadow. She isn’t repeating me; she’s evolving me. And that realization cracked my heart wide open.
Here’s the great paradox of parenting: you raise your kids to stand tall on their own, to be strong and independent. And then, when they finally do, it’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever face. You spend years teaching them how to let go of your hand, and then it’s you who has to learn how to let go.
I left Colorado with tears in my eyes, yes, but also with a deep peace in my chest. Because when I see my daughter out in the world, I know that the story didn’t repeat itself. The chain of fear stopped with me. She isn’t carrying my mother’s fear or even my old fear. She’s carrying my love forward, in her own way, into her own life.
And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? To love so fully that your children can take that love, unburdened, and write the next chapter. And I’m so excited to see what’s coming next in her story.
Here’s to a week of remembering that letting go isn’t losing,
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