Staying for the Goodbye

Choosing Presence Over Dreams — While I Still Can

Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash

When I was younger, I believed my parents gave me roots.
Roots, to me, meant chains.
Stuckness.
Obligation.
An anchor when all I wanted was to fly.

And so, I specialized in wings.
I built a life that spanned countries, cities, opportunities.
I mastered the art of liftoff.

But years later, standing where they once stood,
I see it differently.

Roots — real roots — aren't chains.
Roots are the invisible lifeline you reach for when life unravels.
They're the voice you call when the world cracks open and you need to remember you're not alone.

And the hard truth is:
my parents didn't give me roots.
They gave me wings.
Figure it out, little bird. Life is yours to survive.

There was no safety net.
No hand on the small of my back.
Just air, and my own two hands.

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When I look at my own children —
who have lived in three countries, traveled to more than twenty, and made thirteen different houses into homes —
it would be easy to say I gave them wings too.

But the deeper truth is,
I gave them roots.

Not in a particular town.
Not in furniture or front doors.
But in something stronger:
a knowing.

If something goes wrong, I can always call Mom.
Mom will be there… no matter what.

They carry their roots inside them because they carry me.

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Lately, I've felt the tug of something else.

After a long search — after a year of looking at dead ends and almosts —
I finally found a business opportunity that lit me up.
It was everything I thought I'd been waiting for:
Freedom. Beauty. Purpose.

But it would require distance.
A lot of it.

Long stretches away.
New apartments.
New airports.
New goodbyes.

And all the voices around me say the same thing:

This is your time.
Don't be codependent.
Your kids need to stand on their own two feet.

And they're not wrong.
Not exactly.

But here's what those voices don't say:

They don't tell you how fast the door closes.
How suddenly the last chapter of living under the same roof becomes past tense.
How one day you are tripping over backpacks and empty cereal bowls,
and the next you are setting one plate instead of three at the dinner table.

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And now I find myself at the crossroads nobody prepares you for.
The Nanny McPhee stage of parenting:

When you need me but don’t want me, I must stay.
When you want me but don’t need me, I must go.

It's not glamorous work.
They act like they don’t want or need us anymore.
But they do.
Not in the triumphant way they did when they were little.
It’s silent, steady, invisible, unappreciated.

The world tells you to chase your dreams,
start your second act,
follow your passions.

And I want that too —
a business that lights me up,
a future that's more than motherhood.

But I also know this:

This door is closing.
Two more years.
And it will never open quite the same way again.

Once they leave,
they are still ours —
but those little daily moments,
those casual hellos and late-night snacks,
those impromptu drives and angry kitchen debates —
those belong to this chapter only.

And once it's over,
no amount of wishing can bring those moments back.

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And so I stay.
Not because they can't survive without me —
but because this is a moment of parenting that will not come again.

Because the roots I am giving them now
are not about control.
They are about presence.
They are about building the kind of knowing that says,

No matter what happens, I am here.

And because even for me —
for the woman who built her whole life on wings —
this season is sacred, too.

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I will find my second act.
I will light the fires of ambition again.

But right now,
in this brief, holy, closing window,
I choose to be the root.
I choose to stand in the doorway,
both feet planted,
both arms open,
my whole heart awake.

Because once they step out into the world,
the door will stay open —
but we can't make them walk through it anymore.

And when that day comes,
I want to know
I stood here,
whole and willing,
for as long as they needed me.

Even when it was messy.
Even when it was unglamorous.
Even when the world told me I should be chasing something else.

This, too,
is building a life.

This, too,
is flight.

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