New Chapters

May 17, 2025

My youngest is leaving for college in the fall. Sweet baby girl full of life and joy, and she will be taking all of that with her on her stop in her journey. All the hard work, grit, celebrations, and lessons, most of them outside the classroom, and now the chapter is ending. The page is turning, and how I wish I could pause time. The great thief who, when I was busy running from here to there, was slowly unwinding childhood.

I know the next chapter will have joy, and if we don’t grow, we die. I know it is a tremendous gift to be here now. And still, my Momma’s heart aches. I don’t want this part to be over.

Highschool and football games, hearing the cheers and drum line from down the street, prom and promposals, early morning Starbucks runs, exams, projects, and the dash of energy and joy as my children run through the house to grab a book, grab the car keys, and then are off with their friends.

I don’t want a quiet home. I don’t want a sterile house without the remnants of my children around. I want flashcards, textbooks, and a laptop on the coffee table, and all the shoes strewn by the front door, dishes in the kitchen, all the open bags of snacks in the pantry, and dirty laundry sitting by the washing machine, asking politely to be washed. I want to hear laughter, chatter, and the TV with someone on the couch, the dog by their side, watching Gilmore Girls on repeat. I want to hear doors open with my children walking through them, and the sounds of a car pulling into the driveway bringing them home. I want to hear Mom what’s for dinner, and can we run to Trader Joe’s, and have you seen my history book. I don’t want this to end. I was not made for sterility and silence and letting go.

I don’t know how you do this. I don’t know how to turn this page. And I trust, as all the mothers before me, somehow you do. I know there will be future joys and the home will swell and fill again on college breaks and summers. And it will be like Christmas morning when the house is full. And the shoes are by the door, and I am once again a mother.

Written by Mom, whose heart is aching with this part ending