Parenthood: The Tables are Turning

When my kids were young, my daughter would call me on my way home from the evening class I taught.  We talked until I was in the neighborhood.  When I pulled up in the drive-way, both my son and daughter were standing on the porch jumping up and down in excitement that I was home after being gone for five short hours. They would both run to the car and hug me tight.  Their pure genuine joy in seeing me is the most fulfilled as a person I have ever felt.  Pulling up in the drive-way, I knew 100% I was meant to be on this earth.

As my children are transforming into young adults, the tables have turned a bit.  It is now me waiting excitedly for them to come home.  With their busy schedules of school, work, and friends, I don't see them that often. Sometimes that is fine, because living with young adults who have life figured out can sometimes be a struggle.  But, I am and will always be their momma.  So, as their evenings out become later and later, I wake up constantly as I once did when they were very young, "Are they okay? Do they need me?" I am trying really hard to just stay in bed repeating, "You've raised them well.  They will make good choices," because if I get up and they aren't home at what I consider "a reasonable hour", I go into panic mode and sleep will not come again.  I ask them to please at least send a text that they are safe which is getting better, but sometimes forgotten.  So when the hour finally arrives that I hear the front door open and those familiar steps tromp up to bedrooms, my heart wants to jump up and down in pure delight that they are home.  As children they could share their excitement in seeing me, I don't dare show mine because I know they need their space and my jumping out of bed to embrace them will only make them feel watched and judged.  They made it home.  That's all that matters to me.  In the morning (wait, who am I kidding, they won't be awake until afternoon), I can shower them with love and let them know how happy and honored I am to have them in my life.