One morning last week I was driving Gabe and Nora to school, last minute, as usual (they'd said they'd walk, ok, whatever). But it was raining and, sure I would. These days, how could I not?

They were talking about all the upcoming events: Nora's jazz concert, the high school coffee house, who would go to what, and reminders from the drivers’ seat that if you decide on this plan over the other you are going to need to find a kind family or friend to bring you home. Etcetera, etcetera; the trappings of teenage-hood. Me, a solid parent of teens now.

I used to (and still do) observe these very people admiringly. They seemed so…cool. The teenagers themselves were interesting too I suppose - not for me to really know, a bewildered consumer of youth culture if anything. But I couldn't get enough of the parents. They'd go out to dinner whenever. They didn't know where their kids were exactly. I am that now, I thought, having somehow arrived without any thorough insights on how the journey took place. I just kept getting up and making them go to school. I just kept buying larger sneakers, and now I can’t tell, looking at them cluttering the mudroom floor, which shoes belong to which person.

Alongside this realization, I have been thinking about writing, too. About how their stories aren't really mine to tell anymore. It’s both a practical acknowledgment and (perhaps?) a big deal for someone like me, who has been writing their lives for so many years. Borrowing their experience for my own telling. And there are some stories I’ll keep telling anyway, forever - this is the earned privilege of being a mom I think - about how Gabe just got back from China, how the river cruise in Shanghai was his favorite day. And how Nora just ordered a bunch of prom dresses to try on.

But the rest is really their own, and I’ve realized over the past few weeks especially, as I sink into a new job and they go off on their own adventures, how much more calm I am when they are out and about. Like around town, sure, but also halfway across the world. It’s shocking but expected that what happens in life is - you get used to things.

Still, though, on mornings like that recent one when I have them trapped in the car for a few minutes, it’s hard to stop talking. You know, while I still have them. I have this compulsion to take those gifted moments of togetherness and try and impart all the wisdom I can. When what I know to be true - what the experts say - is that most teenagers (honestly most people) would prefer a quiet, steadfast role model type. There, mostly silent, to receive and not so much to give fast-paced coffee-fueled advice at 7:10 a.m.

I think when you see parents all obsessed, all abuzz about their children, it is, yes, sometimes, because of worry; because of fear that things will end up not the way you expected or wanted. And while I can understand that, I also think that for me, maybe for a lot of us, it has to do with being sure I provide all the lessons I can before they leave for that next thing that isn’t the confines of the family vehicle. Like that if I don't get in every bit of learned knowledge I have accrued in my own life, I won't ever get to tell them.

Which is, of course, nonsense. When my children go places, I'm still here and we are still us. The parental relationship doesn't dissolve (just look at all the advice I've received from my own mother in recent years, and I left home, well, some time ago). And also, they'll figure some of it out on their own. You know what, they’ll figure most of it out. Because, as I like to tell them (god do I love to tell them!) the learning is so often in the doing.

And so, finding myself here, I’m thinking about what I’ll tell you next, and I’m thinking about how to get better at letting the peaceful moments be. I’m thinking about how it’s a bit of a relief for children and parents to become just slightly irrelevant to each other, that this is the way it should be (like how it wasn’t cool when I tried to use “chopped” and how my kids love it when J and I go out for a drink, the house devoid of our ever-present parental energy).

It’s a challenging but peaceful endeavor, it feels like knowing you are doing the right thing. Me, so so talkative - my goodness! - trying to be a little bit more quiet.