"I can't believe I'm going to graduate this month!" my oldest daughter exclaims as she helps me clear the kitchen table. "I keep pinching myself to make sure it's not a dream."
Scraping mashed potatoes from a bowl, I notice how expertly she loads the dishwasher--plates on the bottom, glasses on the top.
"How graceful this girl is," I think, as she bends to place a saucer in the rack, her burnished curls falling loosely from a single gold barrette.
What happened to the gawky child who always had a band-aid on each knee? Where is the teething baby with strained carrots on her chin? How did she grow so competent in just one night?
With mixed emotions, I watch her move deftly between the cupboard and sink, knowing time has snatched away the precious infant, who blew wet kisses in my ear, and replaced her with a spunky, independent 17-year-old fully capable of going off to college and succeeding on her on her own.
Cherishing the memory of the rosy-cheeked toddler whose tiny fingers once wrapped so trustingly around just one of mine, I embrace the lovely woman-child who clings to me now with one hand and pushes me away with the other.
I wonder if she feels it, too--this push-me-pull-me kind of tug of war.
Sometimes she just can't wait to get away.
"When I'm in college..." she says, purposely leaving the sentence unfinished in order for me to imagine every possible thing she plans to do then that I won't let her do now.
"When I'm grown..."
When she's grown and has children of her own, she won't make any of the mistakes I've made. She'll be a perfect mother, perfect wife, perfect employee.
It's what I want for her, but still it's hard to let her go.
Other times, quite unexpectedly, she tries to snuggle back into the predictable security of our home. I see her walking through her bedroom, smoothing back the bedspread, stroking a bedraggled teddy bear, touching the tattered wallpaper that's been there all her life.
She knows her younger sister has big plans for that room--paint the walls pale lavender, move the twin beds out, bring in a day bed, let Big Sis use a trundle on the weekends she comes home.
"Just don't change it too much," the older girl pleads when she finally understands how getting things you want can make you cry.
"We won't," I promise, knowing well how painful changes are.
