Yesterday my 17-year-old daughter graduated from high school. Thursday marked her last day of classes, Last night we attended the graduation ceremony. I know she is graduating, but to a certain extent, I feel I am as well. We are both graduating to the next phase of our lives together. She goes off to college and I go off to life without one “child” at home.
There’s something odd about that. I didn’t feel that old turning 50. I feel a bit old though when I think about having a daughter in college. I’ll still have one child at home for another two years, but I still feel as if something has changed.
This graduation marks the beginning of a new life for my daughter. It marks the end of something for me; I’ll never stop being her mother, and she’ll never stop being my daughter–but she’s become an adult. She won’t need me as much. She’ll be independent. Her graduation marks the end of my role as her mother.
Oh, I’ll always be her mother. And she’ll need a mother but not quite asย much. In fact, I saw that already this year. That’s how I knew she was ready to go off to college. She already is independent and responsible. And that’s what good parenting is all about…making our children self-sufficient.
She’s already not around much, and I don’t normally think too much about that, but when she’s 3,000 miles away in college on the East Coast and I’m still on the West Coast, I’m really going to miss her.
I’ll have to figure out how to live without her. I wonder if that will be as hard for her as it will be for me? So who is really graduating?
