I know I have already written a lot over the past few months about midlife, our next season, and upcoming parenting transitions. Perhaps I have even written from the perspective that it’s all already here. In some ways, this time does feel presently upon us, but in other, very tangible ways, it isn’t here quite yet.

As of the beginning of January, we are in our “last semester” as parents of a child at home. Kate, our youngest, began the final semester of her senior year, and I have a lot of feelings and emotions about it. A lot.

Number one. Time. How dare you?

How in the world did we end up here so quickly? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was taking Kate to a twice-weekly Mother’s Day Out? Or wasn’t she just in the fifth-grade classroom across the hall from mine in Louisiana? Or just starting junior high, getting her braces on or off, at Fort Campbell? Didn’t she just start high school in Virginia? Much like it did with her two siblings before her, it feels like the past 18 years of her entire childhood have flashed before my very eyes in a blink and in a blur.

Number two. Regrets.

I find myself reflecting a lot upon my parenting choices. Did we get it right? Did we go wrong? What would I go back and do differently if given the chance? Right now, I’ll leave these as rhetorical questions for my own consideration. Who knows, maybe at some point I’ll do a deep dive and answer them here. The point is, in this very moment of the last kid in her last semester, I am feeling vulnerably suspicious of the tangible proof of our parenting.

Number three. Opportunities.

Am I making the most of them? Am I being present enough? Am I carrying out traditions like I have done for Thomas and Mae in their final year at home? Are we enjoying and savoring all of the rites of passage as they come? See above. Time. Regrets. Better make the absolute most of these last months, weeks, days…

Which leads to…

Number four. Overbearing.

Am I putting the mother in smother? I don’t think I need to elaborate on that too much, but the answer, I am afraid, is yes. I am. I sense Kate’s wings spreading, her independence growing, her confidence flourishing. Translation: she needs me less and less. So what do I do? Try to make myself indispensable over the most trivial and nonsensical things, of course. I can sense the tension of this that I am creating. In trying to hold her close, am I unintentionally pushing her away?

Number five. The ache.

I’ll end with this. Being the baby of the family certainly has its perks. We joke that what we had in youth and energy with our first, we have now lost. But in its place, we have gained wisdom and resources with our last. And yet, one of the downsides to being the last child at home means you get to bear the brunt of all of parental angst over being the last to cross the threshold into young adulthood.

I am thrilled for our kids to embrace their own adventure. I am actively championing and cheering for them and finding my groove in supporting them from a distance. But that same thrill for them is often overshadowed by my own sadness, grief, and heartache of knowing that much of my day-to-day mothering is nearly done.

As Kate wraps up her final weeks of AP classes, youth group retreats, spring breaks, proms, and finalizes college acceptance and plans for her next steps, I embrace the joy and celebration of these milestones toward new beginnings, and I also mourn the era that is soon to pass.

This last semester, I am holding competing emotions close at heart just like many mothers who have come and gone before me. Wendell Berry’s fictional Hannah Coulter, said it best:

“To be the mother of a grown-up child means that you don’t have a child anymore, and that is sad. When the grown-up child leaves home, that is sadder. I wanted Margaret to go to college, but when she actually went away, it broke my heart. Maybe if you had enough children, you could get used to those departures, but, having only three, I never did. I felt them like amputations. Something I needed was missing. Sometimes, even now, when I come into this house, and it sounds empty, before I think, I will wonder, “Where are they?”