The Grief Is That Everything Went Right
What no one tells you about motherhood at the launching stage
I hadn’t seen my daughter since mid-March. The 4:30 AM wake-up, the 7:30 flight, the two hours in Atlanta, the four hours and fifty-five minutes to LAX, the rental car line… by the time I pulled into Beverly Hills, I’d been moving toward her for thirteen hours.
She’d turned 21 in that gap. Finished her last final. She’s officially a senior, headed to a professional internship in Washington D.C. this summer. While I couldn’t be prouder, I also feel myself already bracing.
I texted her when my luggage dropped. She was between events. I told her to carry on. I walked into one of my favorite boutiques, grabbed Erewhon (if you know you know) to go because it is undeniably the greatest (and most expensive) hot bar on planet earth, and pulled up to her apartment just before six.
Her roommates were gone. One for the weekend. The other for the summer.
I was excited to camp out with her. Her apartment in Malibu has its own special vibe, affectionately known as The Peterson House. Think Serena & Lily meets SoCal on a college student’s budget. The peel & stick wallpaper gives it personality you can’t find in a basic rental.
She came in thrilled to see me. Her boyfriend was with her. And then her attention moved… fast.
The Barbie birthday cake I’d sent for the surprise party her friends threw had been left out on the kitchen counter. The afternoon sun had hit the Barbie tower just right. It had melted. And nose-dived to the floor with a big thud of yellow and pink frosting covering the floor.
Our reunion turned into clean-up in aisle 5.
He was headed to a beach bonfire for another friend’s birthday. I could tell she wanted to go too.
Torn.
I sent them both on their way. I was doing all I could to keep my eyes open anyway.
And as the door closed I felt it again, like watching her step into a continuous revolving door as a little girl and emerge, each time, a little more grown.
Every time she chooses something that proves I raised her well. Every time she doesn’t need me for the thing I would have stayed up all night to give her.
She returned well after 1 AM smelling like a s’mores. My ability to recap her night was drowned out by her post campfire shower and my heavy eyelids. Our reunion didn’t actually begin until the next morning.
The tides have changed.
Long are the days when I sent her to camp and she begged to come home. Long are the days when she wrote in kindergarten:
On the first day of school, we had three recesses. I missed my mom.
I am no longer the main character in her story.
I haven’t been for a while, if I’m being honest. The shift has been happening for years. I just hadn’t named it yet.
There’s a concept from one of my favorite authors, Don Miguel Ruiz, that I haven’t been able to shake. He calls it the storyteller.
We’re each writing a story where we are the main character, and everyone else, our parents, our partners, our children, is a secondary character we’ve cast and shaped. We don’t actually know them. We know the version of them we’ve created.
And when they grow into someone we didn’t write, we feel the loss before we can name it.
The story needs a rewrite. The rewrite takes a kind of looking we don’t always have. Or want.
I saw it last week, in a way so small I almost missed it.
My daughter and I were taking her car to be stored for the summer. She said she needed gas, but only a little, they say it’s not good to fill it all the way up before storage.
I asked who they was.
Neither of us knew. We looked it up. Turns out you should fill it. It’s better for the tank.
It was a small thing. But it stuck with me. How quickly we accept they say as truth. How easily we live inside stories we never traced back to a source.
I do this with people too.
For 21 years, I have been writing my daughter as the main character in my story. The lead role. The reason I make most of the decisions I make. The first call. The first thought. The first concern.
But that’s the trap Ruiz is naming.
The character I’ve been writing isn’t her. It’s my version of her. The little girl who needed me. The teenager I worried about. The college freshman I dropped off three years ago. Each one a real moment. None of them the whole person.
She has been adulting beautifully.
Quietly. Without fanfare. Without asking my permission (just my credit card). The way it’s supposed to happen.
And while I’ve been holding onto the character I created, she’s been becoming someone I’m only now meeting.
She has her own story. Her own boyfriend, her own friends, her own city, her own birthday celebrated without me there. Her own internship. Her own next chapter that I am only loosely consulted on.
I am no longer the main character in her story.
I’m not sure what I am yet. Author of my own, maybe. Witness to hers. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have a name yet. It’s a role I’m writing as I go.
And the character I’ve been holding onto isn’t really hers either.
Growing up, Elise used to say, you’re my best friend.
My answer was always the same. No. I am your mother. Someday when you’re old enough, you can call me that.
I think that day arrived.
And I’m not sure I’m ready for it. Acknowledging that feels like I am giving up something I am not sure I ever want to let go of.
This is what no one tells you about motherhood at this stage. The grief isn’t that something has gone wrong. The grief is that everything has gone right. She has become exactly who she was meant to be. And that becoming requires that I loosen my grip on the role I’ve held for two decades.
The end of our 5 days together came fast.
Another 4 AM wake-up. We were both flying out at 7. I had to return the rental car. Her boyfriend showed up at the apartment at 5 to load the bags into the car. His request… to drive her to the airport. Their last moments together before a summer apart.
Young love at its most beautiful stage.
I drove separate.
If you know me well, you know I live in my own time zone. That’s what my late husband used to say. Drove him crazy.
He’d be the one shaking his head, murmuring “Goddammit” (his favorite verb, noun, and adjective) and telling me to hurry, even now.
So it was no surprise that I caught every red light. Got rerouted. Hit more delays at the still-not-quite-finished LAX rental car return.
CLEAR shuffled me through security where I finally found her.
Only for my bag to get flagged.
Each moment ticking. Fast.
The boarding door was one minute from shutting when I ran — the first time I’ve run since I crossed the Sydney marathon finish line in August. My tenth and last marathon.
I was the very last person on the plane.
I didn’t get to linger with her. No long goodbye.
Three weeks until I see her again.
She’s writing her own story now.
The most loving thing I can do is stop holding the pen.
Instead, I’m writing this with tears 30,000 feet above the world.
My own story.
As far from her as I’ve ever been.
Always EDITing,
Leslie
A few weeks from now, I’ll be writing from somewhere very different.
My bag came home a little heavier.
Top of the list: safari attire.
I am over the moon about my upcoming trip to the Maasai Mara for the great migration and the chance to see the Big Five in their own habitat. The bigger bonus, gorilla trekking in Rwanda. And an opportunity to finally meet a woman I mentored for years (more to come on this for sure).
Planning for this is its own special curation. I found some goodies to take along. Thanks to my time in Malibu.
I’ll be writing from there. Come along.
Oh and… last week’s subscriber give-away was announced in my Notes yesterday. Another one will drop next month. Not from Malibu. Think: Africa!
This will land in Meredith’s mailbox this week.
Awww I love you so much mom! My best friend in every lifetime and the person I go to for any advice ❤️❤️
The best momma around. As always, with love & affection…💕🥂