I was driving my middle schooler to school today, as I do every morning. Morning car rides can be a mixed bag, and I get it. Sometimes I’m tired in the morning, cranky, not in the mood to talk. And so it’s only fair to imagine that, some days, our kids are, too.
As they get older, gone are the endless days of mindless chatter and nonsense conversations. Sometimes I get a little chit-chat, but some days it’s just silence. And so, on this particular day, I tried to break the silence by telling a funny story about something that happened at work. I hoped for some acknowledgement, a little amusement, but to my surprise, what I got was a laugh.
A big, beautiful belly laugh, one that I hadn’t heard in many days. My normally happy-go-lucky kid had been having a rough week: some disappointments, lots of school work, some pressure, and tons of anxiety. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I heard that real, genuine, beautiful laugh until I heard it this morning.
Everyone gets so excited for your baby’s first laugh, but you have no idea the elation when your newly minted teen comes out of her angsty haze and comes back to you. So obviously, I played it cool and continued our drive, but that sound was the sweetest sound I’ve heard in a while, and I’ll replay it in my mind for the rest of the day. It wipes out the middle-of-the-night anxious wake-ups, the quiet car rides, the closed doors.
It’s showing me my sweet girl is still in there, trying to balance the newfound heaviness of her world with the carefree kid life we so want them to hold on to.
It got me thinking about how every move you make as your kid gets older is important. I naively thought they needed you less as they get older, but I think they just may need you more!
So on this specific drive, on this particular day, I’ll be her comic relief. I’ll be her court jester, doing anything I can to lift her spirits and make her forget all the things that are crowding her mind.
I’ll just tell her funny little stories, about people she doesn’t know and will probably never meet, to distract her from growing up, and all that comes with it, for just those few minutes in the car on the way to school before she hops out and goes about her day without me.
