Letting go… of looking into the future

A while back, as I drove my precocious eight-year-old around town, she asked in a solemn tone, “So, who’s going to teach me to drive? Will it be Dad? Or will it be you?” I gasped. My breath stalled. My eyes were wide as saucers.

“We can talk about it when you’re sixteen, honey,” I replied in as calm a tone I could muster.

“Not sixteen mom, it’s fifteen you know. You can drive with someone when you’re fifteen,” she replied with a hint of disapproval and of course, a ‘mom-knows-nothing’ air. Sigh… that ‘mom-knows-nothing’ tone is getting so familiar, I now almost believe it!

I imagined her steering what looked like a large iron contraption with wheels. She was so little. The car was so big. She was so innocent. The car looked so dangerous.

I gasped again. I felt like I needed more air. I was not ready for this. Not for this conversation, not for this ever happening. I saw myself wiping crumbs off her little face and coaxing her to eat a little more. Then again, I saw her excited to get behind wheels, ready for the next adventure.

Then I brought my imagination to a screeching halt. There was time. I wasn’t ready for these images just yet and I didn’t need to be.

All I can hope for is that I will be ready when the time comes. I imagine a lot of ‘letting go’ will need to happen in that general area. Driving, boyfriends, going off to college… And although my breath is stalling again as I type this, I hope by then I will have learned better to ‘let go’. So I can be strong enough to trust her judgment and allow her to live her life.

So for now, I am simply going to laugh (and grimace) at her mastery over ‘armpit farts’ and leave the future in the future.