Inadequacy

I'm feeling out-of-sorts this morning.  This last couple of weeks have been exhausting (I'll get to that in a minute), and I think it all hit me today.  I set my alarm for 5 a.m. every day, but I'm usually awake by 4:30 at the latest, so I have time to do the New York Times Wordle, Connections, and Mini before I get up.  A little brain wake-up before the shower and coffee do the rest.  This morning, the alarm woke me at 5, and I realized I'd slept "wrong"--my head felt like it was going to explode.  So I snoozed, as per usual, but my alarm clock has a mind of its own:  the alarm went off again after three minutes instead of nine.  I stayed in bed for another couple of minutes, wondering if the headache would cease once I got up and moving.  So I did, and it did.  

The shower and the coffee are being put on administrative leave, because they are just not doing their jobs today.  I feel fuzzy.  Does that make sense?  Does any of this make sense?  I think I'll read this later, shake my head, and say, "Oh, girl."  If you're doing that right now, I feel ya.  I feel utterly inadequate to do this day, and yet I have to.  Work must be done.  Money must be earned to pay for the bed, the shower, and the coffee.  This blog is optional . . . or is it?  

So I mentioned the last couple of weeks.  August 16, we moved my daughter in to her dorm for the first time.  The weeks leading up to that were a flurry of activity--getting the things she needs for school and life, imparting little bits of wisdom here and there, saying goodbye without saying goodbye.  In the interest of full disclosure, she's going to school here in town, so she'll be only about 4 1/2 miles away, but the idea of not seeing her every day almost stops my Mama heart.  I worked in Admissions for almost 20 years, but still felt completely lost when it came to my own child going to college.  That said, the admissions process was easy.  The hard part was after the application and the FAFSA and the scholarship letter and the enrollment and the housing notification and the orientation and the selecting classes and the buying books and the parking registration and the final payment for the semester.  The hard part was realizing I had finished raising my daughter.

Now, let's bear in mind--I'm a very hands-off mom.  I heard when my older daughter was little that our job as parents is not to raise children, but to raise adults, and I have taken that maxim to heart.  I'll present the kids with opportunities as they arise, but if they want to take them, they have to take the initiative and do what's needed to get there, whether it's fund-raising so they can go on the youth group mission trip, or getting all the paperwork together to go to college.  I buy the food, but they prepare their own dinners most evenings.  I'll take them shopping for clothing, but they've been deciding what to wear since they were three (and dressing themselves).  I'll give them information based on my life experience, but what they do with that information is their responsibility.  I'm there to pick them up when they fall, but I will not clip their wings to keep them from falling.  

I was talking with a friend yesterday about my daughter going to college.  He has a daughter who is going into the last half of her junior year at a college in another state.  She's become a confident, independent woman, and he was mentioning how that sort of ticked him off, in the context of her not wanting to spend as much time with her family, as she'd found a new home and family in her new city.  And then he said something to the effect of, "But how can I be mad about her becoming the thing that we have raised her to be?"  And that just stopped me in my tracks.  That's my job as Mom.  To raise independent women who will conquer the world on their own terms.  All I gave them was a foundation--what they build on it is theirs alone to design and create.  And that's all I am called to give them.  If I design their lives for them, what a grave disservice I've done to them.  If I pull all the strings, call in all the favors, fill out all their paperwork and order their books and write their resumes, I am depriving them of the experiences that will shape them into the women they're meant to be.  

I am inadequate as a Mom.  I never made the best-looking cupcakes for the school bake sales.  My family sits and eats dinner in front of the TV most nights.  The kids have never had a summer vacation in Europe.  But my children are kind.  They're strong.  They're compassionate.  They feel the world's hurt and want to do something about it.  And they can do things for themselves.  My inadequacy is manifest in my "little women"'s taking their place in the world.  And isn't that the best we could hope for as parents?