Looking at my sonās face, it is easy for me to see him as he was when he was an infant, with silken hair kissed with just a touch of blonde. Or as a toddler, the way his cheeks would jiggle when he took halting, determined steps across the living room. I was there for all those little moments as he grew up: the birthday parties, the book reports, and the Band-Aids.
But that little toddler with the blonde hair is no longer around. That sweet, bespectacled student leaning over his homework has grown up. His voice deepened, he grew a beard, shaved it, then grew one again. He drives, he makes his own dental appointments, goes to job interviews, and pays his landlord on time. He does all this without me helping. Without me even knowing.
He is 22. Heās taking his first, halting steps into adulthood. Heās meeting new people, creating his own community.
I am learning to let go.
Taylor Swiftās 2012 anthem to young adulthood, ā22,ā captures the dichotomy of this uninhibited, yet tender age.
Yeah, we’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time/
It’s miserable and magical, oh yeah
I am reminded of me at 22, the way the world felt so full of possibilities, and yet so confusing: Where was I headed, really? How was I supposed to carve out a life for myself? Was I doing any of this right?
To celebrate his 22nd, we met at a restaurant of his choosing, in a neighborhood near his Chicago apartment. On his turf. His sweet girlfriend sat to one side of him, his boisterous roommate at the other. They laughed and weaved stories together, sometimes talking over each other in a way that wasnāt interrupting as much as it was joining in a collective chorus. They have inside jokes I donāt know about. Theyāve had experiences I will never be part of. It is an absolute joy to observe.
When I was 22, going home felt complicated. As soon as I walked through my childhood home, I immediately felt 12 years old again. At first, I would embrace the safe feeling of being home with my parents, amongst old stuffed animals and high school memorabilia and the smell of Momās cooking. Before long, however, my own life ā my new adult life ā pulled me away again. My idea of āhomeā was shifting, and I was creating my own life away from my parents.
Sitting across from my 22-year-old at the restaurant, I looked into his face. Itās all right there beneath the surface: the cheeks, the sensitive blue eyes, the raspy quality of his voice that I find so endearing. I feel the urge to hold him close, to remind him that I can still feel the weight of him in my arms as an infant. I can still conjure the damp, earthy way his hair smelled after a bath. I want to tell himāagaināabout the night he was born, how he came so quickly that the doctor ran in from down the hall just in the nick of time. The way he, only minutes old, peed on the nurse unapologetically. How my husband and I couldnāt stop looking at his perfect face and fingers. We laughed and cried in a jumble of joyous exhaustion.
I hold those baby stories and childhood memories in my heart.
Right now, however, I canāt help but smile at his joy. Right now, at 22, he is happy. I can see it in the eyes I know like the back of my hand. He is finding his way, and Iām being left behind, left to keep those memories, but also to look forward and cheer on the life he is creating now.
I know that this is the natural order of things: after all those years of being in the trenches of parenthood, itās time for me to sit back and observe. He is stepping further away from me. The growing distance is bittersweet. Itās evidence that my job is mostly done. He is learning as he goes, without Mom, Mommy, Momma. The way I did, the way my parents did, on and on, back for generations and generations.
