Ugh, you guys—doesn’t life just sometimes feel like a gigantic exercise in letting go? One of the most recent things I have to relinquish control over is assuming my adult children are the exact same people they were when they left for college. While, yes, they were under our roof for eighteen years, they’re now under different roofs learning new ways to look at the world and themselves.

It was honestly my brother Tucker who brought this to my attention decades ago. Now, Team, there wasn’t a stage of my brother’s life when he wasn’t voted “Best Dressed.” I spent half my youth envying his style and the other half shamelessly copying it. Wow…which actually explains why, to this day, I usually look like a well-dressed teenage boy… huh.

Anyway, when Tucker was back in Connecticut visiting after living away from home for years, I made some comment about his love of designer labels, and it didn’t sit well with him. He quickly let me know that brand names weren’t important to him the way they once were. Looking back now, I think it was important to my brother that the people closest to him recognized the ways he was changing. He wanted us to see that his priorities had shifted. He wasn’t the same person he was when he was eighteen.

That exchange reminds me I have to offer my own children that same grace now. This back and forth between my oldest and me serves as a perfect example of how NOT to do it:

My daughter tells me she’s heading downstairs to run on the treadmill, and I say, “Treadmill? But you hate sweating!”
“Mom—I run now.”
“Run? This from the woman who said she’d rather be single than marry into a Turkey Trot family?”

Listen, when our kids were growing up, I wanted them to pay attention to what energized them, and what drained them. What filled their hearts, and what just didn’t sit right. My goal was to teach them what they needed to find their way back to their center through life’s ups and downs. I can certainly remind them of those things when they’re struggling, but I also have to respect that what centered them in their youth might’ve evolved.

While thankfully so much about each of them is beautifully unwavering, this is just a little reminder to me before everyone comes home next month to let go of telling them who they are, and allow them to tell me. Here’s to compassionately getting to know my adult children all over again…while secretly praying that the biggest change is they all stop leaving their crap around my house. A girl can dream!