Dear High School Senior, I Can’t Believe We’re Here Already

I never imagined these days of preparing for graduation, senior prom, senior photos, and you actually moving out would come.

A few weeks into your new life, friends gifted you a six-month sleeper. I remember the cuddly white footie pajamas well. But I swore you’d never get big enough to wear it. How could this eight-pound human grow to fit into six-month clothes? Impossible. And then somehow they did fit, and then they didn’t anymore. Just like that.

Everyone says the days are long, but the years are short. Everyone, that is, who has had a lot of years. When I was a young mama to my sweet girl, I thought we had forever together. I never fathomed we would be here. For years, your every need was demanded of me. You followed me from room to room. You hung on my every word. The days were so long.

Lately, I am just grateful for glimpses of you as you slip in and out of the house in your busy, apart-from-me life. I find myself staring longingly at the chubby cheeks of my toddler or toothless grin of my 8-year-old in photos. The years were too short.

Can we go back to those days? I would do things so differently if I knew then what I know now. Instead, you’re stepping into the cusp of adulthood. I don’t get a redo. There is no rewind button. Only forward.

If you see disappointment in my face, it’s because I’m worried about how I failed you. If you see fear, it’s because I want more for you than the pain I experienced in the lessons I had to learn. If you see sorrow, it’s because I wish we had more time in the seasons of your childhood. The whole while you were growing up, I was too.

It might take 20 or 25 years, but in time, you will understand and forgive me. I could only give you what I already had. No one knows more than me that sometimes it wasn’t enough. This is one of those things you don’t understand until you have to, necessarily, through experience.

I couldn’t imagine these senior days arriving, but I also couldn’t imagine how amazing you are becoming as you figure out God’s purposes for your life. So what I hope you remember is that I will unconditionally love you forever. I hope you know that home is always a safe place to return. I hope you see how much I believe in you and the dreams you’re ready to fulfill. I hope you always feel the invisible string that connects us together no matter how far you roam.