I started blogging around the time I started parenting. Soon, I was writing about those brief moments of transition and nostalgia. My children growing up and moving on as real people. Everything seemed so far away. Middle school, high school, college- it felt like a “someday.”

“Someday” largely seems like every day lately and the new someday feels like something bigger- a wedding, a first job, a grandchild. People say there’s 365 days in a year but I have questions about the past 13 for me.

My mother got sick this year. She also turned 80. Her mortality and my own parenting stage became painfully apparent. A type of loneliness began to set in. A type I can’t quite put words to. But today I will try.

In the middle of summer in my 43rd year of life, I have two middle schoolers. I have a husband close to 50, I have *so much* to love and appreciate. But I also feel like I’ve hit the top of a roller coaster drop that’s about to go faster than I would like it to (this is also the reason I stopped riding roller coasters).

So much heart and so much physical effort is put into raising small children. Losing sleep, keeping them safe, negotiating nap time, getting them to eat healthy foods. When they are physically small, it’s easy to feel like the stakes are small. Tomorrow we will cuddle, make cookies together, and I will read you 10 picture books on the couch. My thoughts, my conversations, my family time will feel intimate, private. Our own little world barricaded from everyone else.

Covid brought back that feeling. I had an 8 and 10 year old all to myself. As stressful as that time was, I was so happy they were neither toddlers nor teenagers, I felt like I had secured the child rearing sweet spot of lockdown. It was a bonus I never knew would strengthen the family the way it did. But somehow, even *that* feels far away these days.

And I feel it. Everything about me is older. My eyes, my wardrobe, my dance moves. I feel their adolescence, their shifting identities, their strong spirits growing out of (and away from) me. Yet, when I look at them all I see is a little boy with glasses asking for a “cuddle party.” I see a little girl who sang “Uptown Funky What” for a whole summer.

My phone throws images at me from my past: Facebook memories, Google photos labeled “back in the day.”Pieces of my family’s history that land like a gut punch. Next year my son will be taller than me. This fall my daughter may stop grabbing my hand on sidewalks. And even though I’m trying not to write the elegy before we’ve lived the ballad- it’s getting a lot harder. Summer seems to magnify it. Times a hundred.

Trust me, I can see 50 year old me reading this and saying, “Jesus, Bridgette pull it together- they are still so young.” But 33 year old Bridgette is shocked by how much things have changed. How much kid-activities drive the bus (or the minivan), how conversations between Mike and I seem rushed or non-existent, how much more freedom I have that I don’t take advantage of. All because I am worried about missing the time with them.

You spend their first 8-10 years of parenthood fantasizing about what they could be—someday. You spend ages 10-18 (and beyond, I suspect) thinking about who they are and how they will make their way. Every decision feels big now- social ones, athletic ones, academic ones. We used to talk about what cereal we were going to let them eat and what our screen time allowances were. Now we are resisting (hard) getting them phones and talking about college. They are planning their next birthday party or growth spurt while we fantasize about the days when all we had to do was determine how to tire them out for naptime.

But, parents in 2022 live through lenses that didn’t exist when our parents were raising us. They couldn’t read internet articles or social media feeds (or sappy teeny tiny blogs) that highlight the peccadilloes of parenting. They didn’t search for a single answer to your inexplicable medical issue in a 2 am Google search.

So what *did* they do? They lived it. Every twisty turn, every loop de loop, every gut drop of parenting. They appreciated some things, forgot to appreciate others. They told you stories, pulled out a drawer full of pictures (many less than our own children will have, it turns out) and told you about all the days, moments, summers you spent together.

And sometimes they stopped—briefly— for small moments and big moments. They got choked up and said they were proud of you. (Except when I came home with a tattoo and dad said, “You are really stupid.”)

They had less to learn from but also less to aspire to. Their values were not set by strangers on social media or by your friends down the street. I don’t remember seeing a tearful nostalgia in my mother’s eyes when I headed off to middle school.

But I didn’t need to.

Growing up is never sad to a child until they are an adult. The growing is, as it turns out, the best part. You grow into yourself. Into a college kid. Into an adult with a car payment. Into a middle aged midsummer mom with middle schoolers. Into a grandparent.We’re all growing into something, it turns out. Every member of the family. All at the same time.

And no matter how near or far their childhood feels—No matter how difficult or perfect their current stage of life seems—No matter how present or distracted you are—please know this:

Your “someday” will keep changing. Don’t rewind or fast forward too much. It’s enough to drive you crazy.

Just let today’s roller coaster be the big drop it is.

And when you can, put your arms up, scream along with them, and (try to) enjoy that drop. Over and over again.