One of my kids lives crammed up against a coastline, breathing in that sweet, sweet ocean air all by herself. She has her own bank account and her own credit card. She buys clothes I've never even seen. She volunteers on the weekends walking strange dogs around an unknown building in a state I hardly know. She has a job that is so serious she can't even talk about it and knows stuff that she has to tuck into a special part of her brain, all taped over with red TOP SECRET tape. The only person who could have understood that part of her life was her Dad and he missed that, and she knows it and I know it so we don't talk about it at all. We Skype and we message and send stupid links to each other on Facebook, but most of the hours in her days are not my hours any more.
Another kid isn't even in the country, and when I manage to catch her on her way from one thing or another, it's evening for her when I'm still gearing up to contemplate brunch. She takes classes in subjects I know nothing about and spends her nights having erudite discussions using terminology I've never even heard. On Christmas Eve she listened to a sermon in an ancient cathedral and participated in an old ritual that is entirely new to her. On New Years she lit a torch and, with hundreds of other lit torches, she walked through the city, HER city, the city she has made her own by walking its streets, step by step learning it until it lives in her heart. I didn't see her light up the night sky. I didn't walk with her, and see our breath cloud out in front of us when we laughed. I didn't watch her do it on all on her own with those hundreds of other people and, seeing another woman also alone in the crowd and a little sad on New Year's Eve, hand over her extra torch to light up someone else's sky as well.
And now my other kid, my last kid whom I had the great privilege of getting to know all on his own the last year or so (sorry girls - it's the one compensation for being the youngest. Think of it as payback for all the times you made his Bionicle's play pony games and have tea parties) - THAT kid is planning on moving out on his own. Which is good. It's right. It's what he needs to do. And I wish to all hell I didn't feel guilty about it, especially about him being in THIS city, THIS place that none of us really like and that is painted over with our days and months and years of being unhappy. But he assures me that he'll be fine because he has his personal freedom, the thing he can hop on and throw all that miserable city crap, and his job with its horrible hours, and all the other things that pile up and hem you in behind him. He hangs his happiness on two wheels, and I've seen him come back from a ride to the mountains so sometimes, sometimes I almost believe him.
