The days are getting shorter here and my worries are getting longer
(sorry so cheesy); Elizabeth is driving! As many things in life, this event is two sided - one side gives me freedom and the other causes much apprehension. hmmmmm. I am getting better at letting go of these fears - realizing that I can't stop life from doing its thing and that I will get through it because we have to. I will try to focus more on my freedom and less on the thought of her on the road - alone. Once, I wrote about how much I valued the time she and I spent in the car going from place to place , leaving supper on the stove to run to town for makeup, driving east 20 miles to a friend’s house or west 30 miles for “True Red” lipstick at Sephora – always inconvenient for me but always bonding for us. I was the one to pick her up from school and hear her day fresh off the presses, news that, otherwise, would have been absorbed in the first moments at home – moments gone that I would never have known about. The VW she is driving is where I introduced her to The Beatles and Dylan and she discovered how much she loved Lennon and asked tens of questions about that era that was my childhood – she learned as I relived. Well, here I am on the other side, now I will know much less about the days of this little girl. I will have my coveted “freedom”, but I will not have those intimate moments while driving her from place to place. My mom had such a handle of these transitions, these closing doors – she told me she was never sad about endings, instead she looked forward to the next chapters in our lives. I will take that with me as I close this door.
b u
p s
