On the Occasion of the Eighteenth Anniversary of My Firstborn's Birth

I'm experiencing all the cliche emotions associated with the fact that my only son turns 18 tomorrow. I'm excited, sad, all of it. I'm so proud, and simultaneously disappointed. I'm disappointed in myself, because I totally did not do pretty much anything that I planned to do as a parent. I wanted to teach him to read when he was very young, and I did do that. Somehow, after that, it became all about whatever was going on at the time. Suddenly, we're here. It's time to look back and take stock of how this project is going, now that I'm handing it off to a new CEO. I mainly wanted to teach him to be a good person. He is a good person, but that's his doing, not mine. I wanted to be a good example, and I haven't always been that.

But I'm letting myself off the hook.

Because I have loved him with all my might, and don't intend to stop just because he will now be legally responsible for himself. I'm forcing myself to let go a little bit and accept this event. Furthermore, I'm even attempting to embrace its joys. I remember exactly what it felt like to turn 18, and I hope the liberation is just as gratifying for him, even if really, in the course of day-to-day life, the change is primarily psychological at this point.

His birthday isn't about me, of course, it's about him. But this writing that I'm doing is about me. And so I'm processing, with each tap of this keyboard, how I feel about his childhood being "over." It really, really, really did go so much faster than I ever thought it would. I remember everyone saying that it would. I've been having a sense of dread for weeks, feeling sad that I feel like I failed and that I missed so much of it. 

And then I realized that I haven't. I have been here, and although I've messed up a lot, I've never abandoned him. I've never not loved him. He's never gone without care. And he knows enough now that he really will be okay on his own soon. I'm so glad and thankful that he exists. I'm even more thankful that he is my son.

And that feels weird too. And I guess it's okay that it feels weird, too, because, well, it has to be okay, because that's how it feels, and so that's just how it is.

None of my disappointment has to do with him, although sometimes I have been really mad at him and disagreed with his behavior. I know he's young and human. I trust that he's learned from his mistakes, and that he'll make good choices in his bright future. I'm proud of him not because of his accomplishments. I'm proud of him because he is kind and brave. He just demonstrated these characteristics by gently cutting a hairball off our poor cat Pearl, who'd gotten into something sticky. He is so much smarter and gifted than he even realizes. I sincerely hope that he will be able to harness his intellectual power while maintaining his total lack of arrogance.

I'm rambling and hating the quality of this post, because it's scattered and raw. But it's honest. I had to commemorate this day, my last day as the mother of two "children." Tomorrow, one will be an adult. And I shouldn't have read Kahlil Gibran before I tried to write about this, because now I feel incredibly inferior. He said it so much better than I ever could. It's been so hard trying to be a stable bow, aiming the arrow as high as I could. I can't even fathom the target, but I trust that it will one day astound me.

"On Children" - Kahlil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he said: 

      Your children are not your children. 

      They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

      They come through you but not from you, 

      And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. 

      You may give them your love but not your thoughts. 

      For they have their own thoughts. 

      You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 

      You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 

      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 

      You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. 

      The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. 

      Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; 

      For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.