seventeen

Seventeen

That’s how many years – tomorrow – it’s been since Craig and I became parents. It’s been seventeen years since our beautiful Addison Grace was born. Seventeen years of trying, failing, and learning every day that we are perfectly imperfect and we will never get it right every time.

Seventeen years of making mistakes. Seventeen years of our hearts walking around outside of our bodies. Seventeen years of constant fear, worry, and anxiety that we’ll mess up, that we won’t be good enough.

Seventeen years of absolute joy. Seventeen years of so much happiness that I can’t even find the words to describe the feeling in our hearts. Seventeen years of realizing that we might not be perfect, but we are doing something so very right to raise someone who is so stunningly and inherently good.

Every phase is new and different and busy and scary and challenging in a way that is so amazingly spectacular.

And right now, I think we are in the midst of the scariest, most emotional phase of raising children.

I thought last year would be the most terrifying. The day she turned 16 and passed her driver’s test. I was, on one hand, so excited for her to pass and for her new Range Rover to be delivered to surprise her. On the other hand, I was terrified of the moment she’d drive off for the first time on her own without one of us there to keep her safe.

And I wasn’t wrong – it was terrifying – and still is. There isn’t a moment she’s not home that I don’t have a gnawing fear in my heart. I can’t sleep without her home. I can’t relax without her home. Having a child who drives is one of the most terrifying feelings in the world.

And yet…

Seventeen hits different. Seventeen is…so much older than 16. It’s not an exciting age. It’s not a number anyone feels any particular need to celebrate. It’s just seventeen.

And yet…

Addison turns 17 tomorrow.

In three weeks, she’ll wake up on the first day of school wearing a pair of ridiculously expensive jeans I ordered just for her to draw all over. Her senior jeans. With her class of 2026 shirt. With her senior crown. She’ll wake up, put those on, and drive with her two best friends to high school before the sun rises so that she can experience Senior Sunrise. And then she’ll come home because she has no high school classes her senior year. She’s a full-time college student now…and she’ll walk across the podium in May of 2026 to receive her high school diploma with her Associate’s Degree already in hand. She’ll go to high school only for cheer practice, pep rallies, and Friday night football games.

In two days, we’ll be on our favorite island at sunrise while the photographer we hired takes photos of our daughter with the sun rising over the ocean while capturing her graduation photos.

Seventeen.

The year when every moment is bittersweet because every moment feels like a last.

The last first day of school.

The last homecoming.

The last year at home.

The last childhood birthday.

The last season of Friday Night Lights.

The lasts keep hitting hard – right in my heart.

I cry a lot these days because I am so, so overwhelmed with sadness and happiness and pride and I am in awe of what a spectacular young woman our daughter has grown to be. I mourn the fact that her childhood his almost behind her while simultaneously celebrating everything that she has to look forward to.

Words will never adequately describe what’s happening in my heart at seventeen.

And yet…

Yet every sad tear I cry is accompanied by a smile that is so full of pride. Yet every moment of sadness I feel is accompanied by a moment of joy.

To have raised someone so beautiful – inside and out. To have raised someone so kind. To have raised someone so absolutely hilarious. To have raised someone so driven and ambitious and confident. To have raised someone so talented and humble. To have raised someone I love so much, but even more importantly…to have raised someone I actually really like as a person.

What a gift.

Today is Addy’s seventeenth birthday, and it’s all about her and the gifts she receives.

But what she doesn’t realize is that today is about the gift that she is to us. To her family. To her friends. To everyone so fortunate to know her and love her.