20/20 Vision

I usually don’t talk about my three children here often, unless they are doing something funny. There’s a few reasons for that. One of the reasons is because they are adults and it’s been difficult for me to think of them like as such. It seems like 99% of my fellow bloggers have young children even though we are approximately the same age.

This has been the story of my life.

I had my twins when I was 21 years old. Then I had my youngest son 20 months later and had my tubes tied due to medical complications. All my children were miracles.

As I raised my children I noticed something, I did not fit in with other mothers of my children’s age. Virtually all of the mothers were 10 or more years older than me. At 22 years old, I had no clue how to be an adult, how to relate to these mothers, or even how to be a wife. I really could have used my 20's to mature more, but I wouldn't have changed the way my 20's went for anything.

One of the things I desperately wanted to teach my children was how to be successful adults. By doing this, I wanted them to have a loving, nurturing childhood and to experience their 20's. They didn’t have a father in their lives and I had to try to be both Mom and Dad for them. I could have been a better mother; I was horrible as a father, but I did my best.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell everyone, but my 26 year old daughter moved out last month.

It’s been a difficult time for me because I miss her. And on the other hand, I want her to struggle a little out in the big world....to see how it feels to stick to a budget (which is something she has always been great at)....to have to make dinner after a hard day’s work....to have to juggle doing your laundry and food shopping...to have to pay rent, on time, with a fear that you will be evicted, if necessary. These are struggles that make one or break one. And I know that she will succeed. I know it.

She is an artist and works on ad campaigns and such in an advertising agency. She also runs her own graphic arts company called BriteDesign where she creates web pages, logos, book covers, CD covers and sells her artwork online. And yes, I am very proud of her.

Jen and I shared clothes all these years, that I miss too because she always had better taste in clothes than I. Now that she’s gone, I look like a schlep.

Jen called me last night on her way home from work and I invited her to stop by for dinner, just me and her.

It was just wonderful. It felt right, like we were both in the right place in our lives. That’s the only way I could describe it. I fell in love with her again in a different way...in a grown-up-child-of-mine way.

After dinner, while I was baking her some chocolate chip cookies (of which I ate most of) she re-did my blog set-up for me.

And when she left I thought of all the mistakes I made along the way and how despite them, she turned out to be a wonderful, levelheaded, mature, responsible and successful woman. And she’s really beautiful too.

It is such a bittersweet feeling, I can’t describe it well, but it feels like "job well done/there goes my little girl"both at the same time.