Luca jumps. And every molecule in Lydia’s body jumps with him. She sees him, the tight tuck of him, how small he is, how absurdly brave he is, his muscles and bones, his skin and hair, his thoughts and words and ideas, the very bigness of his soul, she sees all of him in the moment when his body leaves the safety of the overpass and flies, just momentarily, upward because of the effort of his exertion, until gravity catches him and he descends towards the top of La Bestia.
–Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt

Being a mother feels curiously like having your heart walk around outside of your body. The first time I left our first baby in daycare, wailing inconsolably in her onesie while I headed off to the hospital, I felt like I had left part of myself behind. I knew there was a corner of my mind that would be wondering how she was doing the entire time I was going through the motions in clinic. Back then, motherhood played out in extremities of service, doing things I’d never done for anyone outside of myself: lose sleep, commit to physical pain, question my career ambitions, seriously confront my anger or selfishness. I did those things freely, without question or reservation, and perhaps that is partly why the shape of my life changed as radically as it did. 

And then, there’s that day they walk off to school, and you’re waving cheerfully and trying to act like it’s normal for one of your vital organs to wander off on its own. Despite being a perennially optimistic person, I had to resist the urge to rehearse disaster (why can’t I do this, mom? because you might die! Oops, did I say that out loud?). The intensity of physical labor has been lessening through these growing-up years, although the emotional and mental labor has ramped up. I’m learning about each of my kids’ personalities, strengths, struggles—in other words, learning that they are in fact not me. Which in turn forces me to be honest about who I am and what I believe.  What do I say success is, versus what do I truly believe it to be? Well, what is it I really want for my kids? There’s the answer. Parenting has a way of sifting out the unfiltered truth of who you are and what you believe.

For the first time now, one of our children has veered off in the direction of adulthood. Our youngest still runs over to hug me hard when she sees me at school; our older kids turn back more than once to wave when I drop them off for swim. But our teen walks away, not looking back. I know she’s her own person now more than ever, but there’s still a small part of me that goes with her. Motherhood in this stage feels quite insane. In what other venture of life do you invest so much, when you’ll never own it in the end? Because it’s becoming increasingly clear that what she needs is not to need me. This may not be hauling myself up in the middle of the night, but it’s another version of setting myself aside. 

Celeste Ng writes, “To a parent, your child wasn't just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once. You could see it every time you looked at her: layered in her face was the baby she'd been and the child she'd become and the adult she would grow up to be, and you saw them all simultaneously, like a 3-D image.”

That holographic view of our oldest is forming. I can see now not only the baby and child she used to be, but more of the adult she will become. It’s a sense of time both suspended and accelerated: I can see all those persons at once, and it makes my moment with this person all the more poignant, the way you want to linger with someone you know will not be around forever. 

I’m not sure what all is next. Sometimes, I daydream about the day when all the kids are gone, when I never have to buy Cheerios again, can just make meals with things I want to eat, won’t go around picking up toys and books all the time. But maybe I’ll find part of my heart gone just the same, out into the world wherever they are, wherever the wind has caught them, wherever they are landing. Maybe that part never ends.