Everything in our life just changed: Sweet 16 and DRIVING!
Yes, this is a picture of my daughter with her new driver’s license! She is so excited, and I’m so thrilled for her… while at the same time trying to adjust my heart to this new reality.
She and her younger brother had a long-standing plan for this moment: she came home from getting her license, and the two of them eagerly hopped in the car for their first solo trip to get frozen yogurt.
I watched the car drive up the street and turn the corner… and started crying. Unexpectedly, great big tears started rolling down my cheeks as I told God I was so happy for her, knew this was such a big step in her flying on her own, and yet was struggling to deal with it. It was so very, very bittersweet. ( I know many of you have been there way before me, and you get it!) I texted Jeff, who was almost home from his client’s office, and he came in and gave me a big hug – and then he started getting teary-eyed as well.
Not from worry about her safety – although we certainly are praying for that a lot! – but from adjusting to the inevitable fact that everything in our life just changed. And this is the first of several life changes where there is no real transition: there is only a “before” and an “after.” Before she could drive, she usually needed us if she was going to do something she wanted to do. Now, she physically can do what she wants to do. (And oh how I pray she makes the right choices!) Before she could drive, we automatically spent a lot of one-on-one time together, because we were driving her everywhere. Now, we will need to make the time to stay constantly in touch and on top of what is going on in her life.
Before she could drive, she was still a little girl. (A beautiful young woman, sure, but in my mind she was still “only 15.” That is still young, right? )
She’s not a little girl anymore. She’s two years away from graduating high school. All too soon she’ll be off to college. She’ll be her own woman, making her own way in the world.
As I write this, it is several days after the Big Day and I am (as per usual) in an airport after a short trip to a women’s conference, waiting for a flight home. The “Sunrise, Sunset” lyrics from Fiddler on the Roof keep running through my head, ensuring that tears are springing to my eyes at random moments and causing people to look at me sideways!
Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play? I don’t remember growing older. When did they?
When did she get to be a beauty? When did he grow to be so tall? Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?
Sunrise, sunset. Swiftly fly the days. Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers, blossoming even as we gaze.
I’ve studied this transition with the research for For Parents Only. I’ve interviewed thousands of teens and parents who have lived it. I’ve listened to the hearts of close friends who have launched their beautiful young men and women into life.
I knew what to expect, in theory.
The reality is so different.
I can’t wait to get off the plane and hug my daughter.
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Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.