When I was a kid, summer vacations were definitely a thing, and by vacation, I’m talking about the family vacation where you loaded up the family car and took to the road heading for somewhere new and that might include fun kid-focused activities, like maybe an amusement park that included at least one good, fast roller coaster. For me, these adventures involved drives that were at most several hours but felt a lot longer. The kind of driving adventure that causes the kids in the backseat to ask, Are we there yet? to which the parent response almost always involved some version of, almost, or, not quite, or, just a little bit longer.
These days, when our family hops in the car and heads out, even if only to the local vintage record store or the bookstore at the local mall, it’s still me or my husband who jokingly utter those same words, typically before we’ve even steered the car out of the driveway. I can’t recall our girls ever actually posing that question to us, even on drives that involved us moving our home from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Occasionally they might inquire how much longer we thought we’d be on the road, but they were not really the are we there yet kind of kids.
And I appreciate that about them. I appreciate that they could settle in for the journey and as I consider where we are and where we’re still heading, I appreciate this even more. They are not counting down the minutes to when they will be free of us and nor are we in that frame of mind. Life and independence is a journey, not a destination, and I love that our family embraces that concept. Independence is not a destination. Not for any of us, and by any of us, I’m referring to human beings in general, because we are not meant to do life independently. Rather, we are designed to do life in community, and I’m grateful that for us, part of the community for us is our family of four.
Whenever my mind contemplates the idea of independence, I cannot help but recall the scene in Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer where Rudolph and Hermey the Elf decide and then declare they will be independent together—what a fantastic picture that conjures in my mind of how God intends us to live our lives in this world, independent together.
Or interdependent.
The march of time can cause either of our teenagers to feel apprehensive at times. And yet, we assure them repeatedly that other than the number, absolutely nothing changes when they turn any certain age; in other words, there are no magic numbers, not even 18, that indicate something big or important. I’m not convinced they are fully convinced of this, but that’s okay, because my husband and I are steadfast in this for all of us—the number of their years indicates nothing more than the number of years they have been alive.
Still, what I get to see from my perspective that I doubt they can see even a glimmer of on their horizon, is the ways their independence shifts and changes and strengthens. Small beginnings and a strong sense of self, these are the things I see again and again on this shared journey. What I know from where I stand, and from my own journey, is how equipped they are already, even now (far more than I was, even though I believed I was so much more ready than I was at various times in my life).
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Small beginnings matter. We don’t give our teens enough credit for those, and therefore, by extension, our teens don’t see those small beginnings as the important steps they are. I watch our girls and I admire them for their willingness to try new things and to dive into new experiences. I am proud, even awed by the way they handle challenges, for the way they navigate difficulties and also can see where they still stumble sometimes. I watch them march into their counselor’s offices and lay bare their hurts and their fears and their hopes and their desires. Those hopes and desires, those are the things that are going to carry them along their paths on this life journey. And what I am most deeply grateful for, is that they are not the kids who will demand of themselves, Are we there yet?
Because, my loves, none of us are ever truly there (the things we crave and for which we are created are not static, unchanging things, and so, we continue the journey, growing and changing and embracing the steps and stops along the journey). Nor are we ever truly independent. And for that, I am always deeply grateful, because I don’t want to do life alone, and neither should my girls do their lives alone.