Dear Darling,

In this most momentous time of your imminent high school graduation, I want to point out some little things because hidden within their nooks and crannies are my love and admiration for you.

For starters, here’s a very odd little thing, I have been counting down your last days of school in sandwich crusts. I can’t pinpoint which morning I started cutting them off of your sandwiches for your school lunches, but it was way after I needed to hold a firm line to teach that tantrums over personal particularities are exhausting for everyone, including you. While I was never a fan of the martyrdom message lurking in “you get what you get and you don’t get upset,” I tried to instill that a certain amount of flexibility makes for a more enjoyable life; I mean, just don’t eat the crusts if you don’t want them. But sometime after bedtime snuggles ended, and right as the truly big issues of teendom loomed, I started taking the three seconds to slice those toasty brown edges off. This little task that felt like the last straw for the drudgery of parenting when you were seven years old, became a moment to show how much I loved you as you mastered more and more on your own. I continued making your school lunches way after you were capable to show you that even proficient people deserve support, and I guillotined those crusts precisely because you no longer expected it.

Speaking of morning rituals, what is up with the cat? How can she so casually and randomly refuse to jump up on the bench next to you for the time-honored breakfast nuzzles and bits of bacon? It’s all I can do not to yell, “You fool! Your entire life is going to change and you don’t even know it! Enjoy these last days!” I have been bound and determined to be in the present and not waste one moment of your senior year fretting about you leaving in August—and to not burden you with my parental emotions—but the cat’s ignorance about your scheduled departure date has me feeling some feelings. They say ignorance is bliss, but I don’t think that is the case as the ending of this era looms. High school graduation is the big kahuna of childhood “lasts,” but it is built upon a foundation of final acts I didn’t even know were coming: the last time I wrapped you in a towel after your bath, the last time you ran into my arms off of the bus, the last time you grabbed for my hand. The last, the last, the last. I don’t think my heart could have withstood the anticipation of the passing of every landmark, but I’m glad I’ve had the perspective to not take the milestones of senior year for granted.

And finally, I speak about little things because you blow me away with your grand swipes at life that create jet streams to pull me out of my comfort zone, too. You had me in Washington DC for the March for Our Lives rally even though I shun large crowds and often don’t stand up for my beliefs in favor of keeping the peace. Because of your convictions, I got to discover a little piece of myself again. And mentioning a jet stream is more than a metaphor because you actually had me flying through the air over the edge of a skyscraper on a mechanical swing because of your sense of adventure. I most definitely was not clamoring to flap above the earth, but if you could be plucky, so could I.

But while the big things germinate personal growth, it’s in the little things where our relationship grows: the Netflix bingeing, the sharing of novels, the Snapchatting about the dog. It’s the daily quiet times where we can just be, and that is what I am going to miss most of all.

I believe in you more than you can ever know, and I thank you for taking me on this parenting ride.

Love, Mom

-Ellen