It seems every time I log onto social media, some new friend is posting about their child’s College Move-In Day.
It must just be the age I’m at now.
All these young adults now smiling in front of their new school signs were once just babies, it feels like, reaching all their life-milestones on my phone screen.
The dads never seem to say as much, at least not publicly.
Some may simply post their pride in watching their children make it to this day.
It’s the mothers, though, that have the trouble, poking fun at their own breakdowns.
I read into why the mom is not in all the pictures.
Her eyes are puffy.
She’s taking deep breaths in the bathroom with the door closed behind her.
We mothers always seem to bear the weight.
I have a friend whose daughter is just now getting settled into her brand new dorm room.
It looks comfy, and plush. Much nicer than most dorm rooms I’ve ever seen.
She looks well taken care of, like she always has.
Her room is stocked with multiple personal touches, and thoughtful details.
She is the only daughter, whose eyes have always been full of laughter, and music.
I know the halls in their house are about to feel so painfully empty.
I know when my friend looks around at all the same old views of home that were always there, the light will now somehow fall across the floor differently.
I looked at the pictures of her moving in today; The window, the sentimental decor, the fluffy bedding, and my heart felt tugged so much for my friend.
It is clear she is trying to come across cheerful, and excited for such a big moment in history.
I know the truth, though.
I can easily put myself in her place on that day.
So, I messaged another friend of mine who lives close to the school where this girl will be attending, asking if I could introduce them all in case this daughter, now hours from home and all she knows, ever needs anything.
I made the connection, and sent a couple of messages that contained a lighthearted, “That will be us soon,” with the friend I was trying to connect them with,
and then I closed the messages and was surprised as a choking feeling gripped me.
My nose tingled, and suddenly tears streamed down my face.
“Why am I crying?” I thought at first.
“Its not my daughter,”
Only, it is, in a way.
That’s just it.
Once you are a mom, you feel connected to every mother.
You are a mom to all of them.
You can easily see your own child in another child’s face.
Something happens in you once you trade your partying days for late nights in rocking chairs.
You start to see and feel the world a whole different way,
and now suddenly news reports, and all the “First day of school” photos just start to settle in your heart differently.
I have experienced this pointed back at me, too, as other friends have become invested in my girls, and all their hopes and dreams.
Just this week I posted about my daughter Tessa, and a night I’d had watching election coverage with her, and how in her face I had seen her watching, thinking, and dreaming about all her own tomorrows, feeling hope in all she can accomplish as a young woman, when nothing stands in her way.
The loving replies from my mom friends were so uplifting. I felt secure, and connected.
Other moms were rooting for my girls right alongside me.
It made me realize how much we as mothers and daughters, friends, and women,
at our best, form an invisible chain.
I cried because I am invested in all our daughters.
I think that’s what prompted the tears that specific evening.
They are not just an idea, but girls I have watched go from gap toothed smiles, to being handed car keys. The embodiment of a parent’s hope.
I remember this daughter’s junior high dance recital, and the beloved dog that passed.
I know she had an obsession with parmesan cheese.
I squinted and sized up her first prom date.
I cried because I knew her whole story,
and the dozens of things she had overcome to get to where she was, with that head-tilted smile sitting on that duvet.
I see all of the daughters’ faces with that Mother’s Eye that can still see them standing there at 2 and 3 in Halloween costumes, preschool graduation caps, and pool floaties.
Because of social media, especially, it feels like we all walk each other to the big days,
and I hope that my friends know that, because I walked with them there, they aren’t returning home to those empty feeling halls alone.
I’ll walk back with them.
They won’t be without me.
I will sit with them and share in the new quiet., and then
I will step into a whole new phase of life with them when they are ready.
We will keep walking with each other even as the road narrows, and the sun sets through the oaks, because I know that when we are to each other what we should be,
it’s easy to know why we would cry, too, at these kinds of things.
What is big for my friend,
my fellow mom,
my fellow woman,
should also feel big for me.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
