The Road to Grown

The road from kindergarten to senior year is wild and unrelenting, a blur of milestones and moments that feel too big and too small all at once. One day, you’re tying their shoes, and the next, you’re watching them drive away, their world expanding while yours grows quieter. It’s thrilling and devastating all at the same time.

You cheer them on, of course. You want them to grow, to thrive, to become everything they’re meant to be. That’s the job. You celebrate their victories, no matter how small—a finger-painted masterpiece, a first home run, a college acceptance letter. But in the quiet, when no one’s looking, you ache. You ache for the tiny hand that used to slip into yours without hesitation. You ache for the bedtime stories and the giggles over nothing. You ache for the version of them that still needed you for everything.

And yet, here they are, needing you less every day. You’re proud of them, so proud it feels like your chest might burst, but the pride comes with a hollowing-out, a slow surrender to the fact that they’re not yours to keep. They never were. They’re only borrowed, these beautiful, messy, miraculous little humans.

You try not to let it show. You focus on the joy—their first dance, their first job, their first steps into the world without you. You tell yourself this is what it’s all for, and it is. But some nights, when the house is too quiet and the memories creep in, you’d give anything to go back. Just for a little while. To kiss their scraped knees, to hear them call for you in the night, to hold them close and feel like their whole world again.

It’s the sweetest agony, watching them grow up. You wouldn’t trade it for anything, but if you’re honest, you’d keep them small just a little longer if you could.