Watching Them Become

Tonight, my daughter is hopefully going to board a plane to Australia.

We are in California. We decided to bring her partway, to make this transition easier, to have a few days together before the goodbye. We arrived a couple of days ago.

My husband has the flu. She has a stomach bug. We have made two trips to urgent care today. Three trips to CVS.

This is not the goodbye I have been imagining for weeks.

I can already feel how tightly I will hold her at the airport, whenever that moment comes. How I will try to hold back the tears until she cannot see me anymore. I remember doing this once before, when I left her in Paris while she studied abroad. I stayed steady while she cried, then fell apart in the Uber. I knew I would see her again in a month, and still it hurt.

This time, I do not know when I will see her again.

She will be gone for months. And when she returns, I do not know what her next step will be. Where she will live. What any of it will look like.

A couple of weeks ago, my loved one returned home from Seattle. Later this year, he may choose to move to the West Coast. Or he may not.

I do not know when the four of us will be together in the same place again.

After we say goodbye, whenever that happens, my husband and I are staying here for a few days. Not to sightsee. Not to distract ourselves. Just to stand together and feel the weight of what is shifting.

This is what New Year's Day feels like this year.

Not resolutions. Not intentions. Not control.

Just standing in the middle of uncertainty, trust, anticipation, and loss, all at the same time.

If you are supporting a loved one in recovery, you already know this feeling.

Will they stay sober? How long will they be away? Will they ever live at home again? Will they choose to build a life near you, or far away?

You trust they are capable. That the work they are doing matters. That recovery is real, even when you cannot see it.

You feel anticipation for who they are becoming. Pride in their courage. Hope when someone begins to believe in themselves.

And you feel the loss. The ache of distance. The end of daily closeness. The relationship changing into something you have not yet learned how to navigate.

You hold all of it at once. You have learned how.

New Year's Day often asks for certainty. For resolutions that promise control over what is coming.

But recovery does not work that way.

Recovery lives in the space between fear and hope. In standing at the threshold without knowing what is on the other side.

And this year, the unknown may feel even wider.

Because it is not only about recovery anymore. It is about watching your child become an adult who may choose a life you are not part of every day. Who may move across the country. Who may build something beautiful, strong, and entirely their own, far from where you can see it.

This is the work we have been preparing them for.

And it is hard.

Not only what is changing, but not knowing when you will be together again. Realizing that togetherness now requires intention, planning, patience. That you cannot simply gather at the end of the day anymore.

There is excitement too. Deep, steady excitement.

In the courage it takes to step into the unknown. In the strength it takes to imagine a life beyond what is familiar. In the quiet confidence that grows when someone chooses to discover who they are becoming.

Recovery has taught you that you do not have to choose.

You do not have to pick between trust and fear. Between pride and ache. Between letting go and holding on.

You can stand in the middle of all of it and keep breathing.

So as this year begins, I want to offer you this:

You do not need certainty to move forward. You do not need to know the next ten steps. You do not need to resolve everything you feel.

You need the willingness to pause. To take a breath. To acknowledge the weight of what is shifting without rushing to fix it.

The willingness to hold uncertainty and trust together. To feel anticipation and loss in the same moment. To let this year unfold without knowing exactly where it is going.

This year does not ask you to have it all figured out.

It asks you to trust that what has been built is strong enough to hold, even across distance. To move thoughtfully. To carry forward what matters most, even as everything else rearranges itself.

If you find yourself at this crossroads too, know this:

You are not behind. You are not failing. You are honoring the depth of what you love while making room for what is becoming.

Tonight, I will hold my daughter tightly at the airport and then let her go. Whenever tonight actually is. However it actually happens.

I will trust that both of these remarkable young people will continue to grow, explore, and find the place where they can thrive.

I believe that one of the truest acts of love is allowing the people we love to soar, even when it means letting them go.

Even when you have the flu. Even when they have a stomach bug. Even when nothing happens the way you imagined it.