old country house blog

CLASS OF 2016 – THERE SHE GOES…

EVERYTHING I think to say sounds like a cliché.

“It goes so fast”…”I can’t believe we are here!”…”How did she grow up so fast?”

But times like these – they are the things of which clichés are made …these milestone moments. And within each home of each classmate – the processing takes place..the trying to digest the enormity of it all…and the moving forward because that is the only way to go and these kids..they are a going!

I only have one daughter…my Phoebe…she is the only daughter of an only daughter…both of us…do not have sisters – just each other. She calls me her “best friend” and I call her “my best daughter” and yes, she is my best friend too.

The heading to college part I am actually more at peace with … I have the luxury of one under my belt, Tate, and I know how amazing he has grown to be and I am so very excited for Phoebe to experience her version of this . She will only be 2 hours away. ONLY.

No, it is just the BIG-NESS of it all. This morning, as I walked past her bedroom and peeked in and saw her, still asleep with her cat Gus as sentry and bed companion…Phoebe tightly curled up on her side…a tiny lump the size of a pillow…I saw ALL the Phoebe’s…the red faced newborn, the standing  in her high chair, on her bike seat going down a hill – danger girl, running faster than the boys, laughing til she cried, guitar playing and chocolate loving and fruit despising soccer playing, losing too, too  many people …and staying so strong girl, and through it all … the smile,

….her smile, that smile which has greeted me every single day of her life…including the first day when she lay tucked under my chin and looked at me as if to say:

“Finally!!! Finally after all these years we meet…!”

….and it is not the moving on, not the growing up that makes me feel as if I have met truly my emotional match…it is that I will miss the smile and all that lies behind it, probably more, if I am being truly honest, than I will have missed any single thing in my life.

I don’t think I can write anymore.

Not today. I need to collect myself and smile back and be so very very proud…of my girl.

Phoebe01999

All we have is right now – this moment – and this moment …is amazing!

Congratulations to the Class of 2016!!!

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5 thoughts on “CLASS OF 2016 – THERE SHE GOES…

  1. So beautifully written, Lesli! Cheers to Phoebe and to your family on this momentous day!

  2. I love the photo, very symbolic of her walking away from you on a path. My baby boy graduated last Sunday from high school. I’m sad.

  3. Yes, you are probably right, missing your girl may be much more difficult to live with than you imagine, even. The realization that my girl was not coming home to me in the same way ever again actually made me breathless with emotion. I did not feel it coming.
    She had been away to school already, and traveled a good bit around the world, had some big adventures, and been in a couple of perilous weather situations (wild fires and typhoons), but the move to her first job and apartment 1000 miles away just …
    well, it has been almost one year, and you see how I have responded to your post and that lovely photo!
    Before she was born I dreamt that she came out talking. And what she said was “Let me check it out!”
    She has. I encourage her to take every opportunity, and to do it now. I told her the world was for her. She is so much fun to know.
    It is marvelous, that they can do what you hoped they would do, that they take the world for their own – and yet heart-wrenching that they do. I have never smiled through so many tears as these last months.
    So, yes, congratulations to your daughter, and congratulate yourself as you continue to grow.

  4. Beautiful writing! Beautiful blog! Your post made me think of Patricia Arquette on “Boyhood”. Such a beautiful performance when her boy is leaving for college. Congratulations on raising wonderful kids.

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