The last couple of weeks have been all about our daughters. ?I mention this in case you happen to be the parent of younger children and believe that in the future your life will be “yours” again. ?I can’t say that such a thing never happens, of course. I am not dead yet, so parenting is an ongoing occupation. However, I have no reason to believe my life will ever be all mine again.
This first occurred to me about six years ago: I gave my life away when I gave birth, although I didn’t realize it at the time. ?In fact, without thinking about it much at all, I willy-nilly allowed God to rip out a section of my beating heart and plunk it into the chest cavity of another very small (at the time) human. Ever since, I’ve been tending to this heart of mine which is walking around (inconveniently enough) in various places.
Right now it just so happens that all the pieces of my heart are under one roof again. ?Our younger daughter is home from her first year of college, and our older daughter graduated from college last Saturday. ?At the moment it’s a thing of beauty.
Of course, I like to worry about tomorrow, against the best advice of our Lord and Savior. What will this summer feel like with two daughters coming and going? ?One thing I’m quite sure of: I won’t have that figured out before it’s over.
Absolutely every stage of parenting has followed this pattern: I settle into it approximately 57 minutes before the stage is complete and transitioning to the next one.