A letter to my teenagers

Sweet kiddo.

I know that the time is approaching when you’re going to be on your own. Your head is swarming with insecurities and excitement and fear and confidence. I push you to test your boundaries and to challenge your strengths. To know how to do your absolute best, and to work to make that even better. You know that I want you to go to college, or to master a trade, and to find your place in this world. But mostly, I want you to pave your own way, and to enjoy the exciting and chaotic road to get there. So I wrote out what I want for you, specifically. So that there’s no confusion.

I want you to experience financial security. I want you to be able to travel, even if you have to save first. I don’t want money to stress you out, I want you to know how to budget and save, and I also want you to know how to spend. I want your time to be valuable and important, and for you to be compensated as an asset to this planet.

I want you to be able to cry when you feel sad, and walk away when you feel mad, and to have the tenacity to trudge forward, and to grant yourself reprieve when it’s time to slow down. To trust your instincts, and to respect your own well being. To say no, to say that’s not enough, to say that’s perfect, I can do that, I can have that, to say this is enough, I’m happy with this.

I hope you love so deeply and so freely and so vulnerably that you spend several nights crying into ice cream and watching movies to get over it when it’s over. And then I hope you pick yourself up, grateful for the time you spent, and the lessons you learned, not singed by loss, but replenished by it. Like a fire to a forest who clears the way for newness to grow. 

I want you to have someone to talk to. To text and to FaceTime. One good friend, at least. One person who gets you like no one else has ever gotten you. I don’t want you to be lonely, and I want you to feel at peace when you’re alone. 

I don’t expect you to be a martyr, so don’t feel ashamed if you didn’t front line a movement that was important. But if and when you do resist the current, know that I am behind you. I support you, and I am shouting your name until my voice runs out of sound. I believe in you. There’s nothing you could do that would fail me.

Realize that you have already made me proud, with every small accomplishment and every big accomplishment, since the moments you began becoming you. You have surprised me and surpassed my expectations. Your unprompted kindness to strangers, your curiosity, your love. The greatest gift isn’t the love you give to me, but the love you inspire in me. You have already made me better than I was before you, and my eyes will light up every time I mention your name. I will fit you in to conversations with strangers, and you will be on my mind, always. You are forever the greatest part of my story and my love for you is unconditional and stubbornly unfaltering. I guided you to here, poured every ounce of my heart and soul in to you with the purpose of climbing out of the driver’s seat. And soon the future will be yours and no one else’s, it’s almost your turn to drive, and I am so grateful to be a part of your path. Please cruise by from time to time because you know I will miss you. I love you.

-Mom