No Regrets

I am so weary.  I feel like taking a deep nap and waking up ten years ago.  Yeah, ten years ago would do it.  Golda would be just about to turn eight.  I would be making beautiful invitations for her baptism, Scott would be buying her her first set of scriptures.  I would be planning a very special photo shoot with a midnight-blue-and-cream color scheme, Golda in the dress I wore to my own baptism.

That sounds easy.  That sounds fun. It sounds a whole lot less complicated than the messy gamut of emotions accompanying this week, Golda's final week of high school.  I'm not prepared for this stupiditery.  It's so overwhelming, I have to make up words just to describe it.  I'm regretting all the glib statements I've made over the last few months about how it's "not sad" and I'm "excited for her."

I take it all back.  It's an appallingly terrible idea to have kids.  I don't know if you realize this, because nobody ever warned ME, but they grow up.  One minute you're blissfully clueless, trying to slip on your pre-pregnancy jeans as you leave the hospital with a day-old baby.  You don't even know.  You don't know anything about anything, on any level.  You're so in for it.  It's astounding how naive you are, and how blind you are to your blindness.  A tidal wave just smacked you in the face and you didn't even feel it!  Then suddenly, as you grope in the dark, there are feedings and milestones and birthday parties and tears and costumes and recitals and first days of school and last days of school and team uniforms and defeats and triumphs.  All of that, every day, boom!  Boom!  Boom! This, then that, then more of this!  You think it's going to last forever.

You fool.

A minute later, seriously a minute, it's your child's last day of high school.  It's over, and you are surprised because, like, it's OVER already?  What about ordering the band uniforms and doing the fundraisers?  All the dance company rehearsals and checking the grades and buying new pointe shoes and hurrying and ordering the music before the next lesson and those endless drop offs and pick ups in the ballet alley?  I love that alley.  I love that alley.  All of that, we don't do that anymore?  The early mornings, the late nights, those aren't a thing anymore either?  The bags of gear, piled high by the front door, tights and leotards, books and papers and music spilling out, those are all cleaned up.  Just like we always wanted.

Friends asked me yesterday, "What do you regret?"  I don't have many regrets.  I am satisfied.  More than regret, I have gratitude.  Looking back, what mattered it this:

I'm thankful we let Golda try out for everything she wanted to try out for.  Scheduling conflicts be damned, every play, every recital, every team, every class was worth it.  And so was the time in the car driving to all those things.  Those drives aren't a chore.  They can be the lifeblood of your relationship with your child.  Scott and I never complained about taking Golda to the classes and practices where she worked so hard.  I am happy about that.

I'm thankful we brought good teachers into her life.  There isn't a better investment.  I'm grateful for every minute Golda spent with her flute and dance teachers, play directors and adults in her life who guided her and provided examples and love.

I'm thankful we made her stick with the things we planned for her.  I told her when she was four and started ballet, and again when she was 6 and started flute, that she could quit when she was 16.  Then I crossed my fingers and prayed she wouldn't want to quit by then.  I knew if we let her quit those beautiful things, I would be sick inside forever.

I'm thankful we went to church every week, and grateful for the peace and light inside Golda because of it.

It goes without saying, I am thankful for the trips we took because they provide the most powerful memories and the most life-altering experiences.  Travel gives you time with your family that you don't, you can't, get at home.  Even if it's camping in the back yard.

I'm thankful for every party we had.  Every birthday, every holiday.  There aren't many when you add them all up.  You don't have much time.  You have to just say yes.

In fact, saying yes is the overriding thing I'm the most thankful for.  Yes to all of it.  Yes to the puppies, the stray cats, the messy art projects, the bedtime stories, the late-overs.  And I'm thankful that Scott and I were there to say yes.  Life is just chock full of good causes and grand adventures.  Today, on the eve of my daughter's high school graduation, if I fall on the ground sobbing, it will be from gratitude that our cause and our adventure was our child, and not some other thing.  I'm desperately grateful that Scott and I didn't get caught up on some side path and miss it all.  We got caught up in Golda's life and it was, and is, the best adventure we could have imagined.  Thanks, Golda.  We love you very much.