It’s the end of the season.
Tomorrow is the last golf match of Ava’s sophomore year (unless they win districts and it’s not the end of the season, but we’ll deal with that tomorrow).
Somewhere between loading her golf bag into my car every day, checking one more tee time, and realizing it’s going to be another 8 months before I have to ask what time we need to leave again, I have found myself experiencing a very confusing emotion.
I am sad.
Which is inconvenient, because I am also fucking thrilled.
Football is over. Golf is ending. The practices, the games, the matches, the driving, the schedules, the driving, the snacks, the uniforms, the equipment, the group texts, and the constant mental calculation of who needs to be where and when are finally coming to an end.
For a few glorious weeks, no one will need me to drive them anywhere at 4:17 pm. And 5:30. And 2:20. And noon. But you get it. I might sit down. I might eat dinner at a reasonable time. I might actually have the energy to look inside the pantry and the fridges to make a list of everything our household need to run and actually go buy all those things and once again have a fully stocked kitchen because we’ll have time to actually use our kitchen.
I don’t want to get carried away, but it sounds a little bit like a vacation to me.
And yet…
I’m going to miss it. Because that’s the thing about motherhood. I spend months desperately looking forward to a break when something ends, and then the moment it does I realize I just lived through something I won’t get back. I complained about the constant practices and pick-ups and drop offs and match times and tee times and schedule. I complained about the long, hot days followed by long, hot evenings. I complained about never being home. I complained about the weather and being in the car for 899 hours a week.
And now that it’s almost over, my perspective is shifting. The golf bag in the car isn’t just a golf bag anymore. That bag we loaded and unloaded into the car 4 times a day for four months isn’t just a bag. It’s a bundle of memories. The football cleats that look like they’ve been to war and back that went straight into the trash following the last game? Those are evidence of a little boy who turned around approximately 500 times per game to give me a thumbs up and a big smile.
I understand why people tell moms to enjoy it. And it’s not because every minute is enjoyable. Let’s be serious. Some minutes are absolutely fucking terrible (like when other parents try to talk to me). But because eventually, the thing I wouldn’t wait to be finished with becomes the thing I would give anything to experience just one more time.
That’s motherhood, I suppose.
I spend so much of my life trying to get to the next thing. The next grade, the next match, the next game, the next season. The next phase where surely I will finally have my life together. Spoiler alert:
I do not get my life together.
I just get a different life to live. And in the middle of that, my kids are growing up. Tomorrow, when the 18th hole is finished, I will celebrate. I will celebrate a season in which my 15 year old golfer broke 50 multiple times, and ended up the number one seed more times than I can count. I will celebrate a successful season with my daughter and her friends that brought her so much joy and so much growth. I will celebrate how fucking amazing she is.
And I may even do something a little reckless, like not check the calendar for a whole day. But I will certainly take a moment to appreciate the season we are closing out because as exhausted as I am, I know I’ll miss this.
I’ll miss the long days. The noon tee times. The overwhelming urge to forget my golf manners and scream with joy for my talented daughter. I’ll miss the nerves and the wins and the bad days and the frustrating moments and the tee shots that end up two feet from the pin.
There is something so strangely beautiful about realizing that the chaos I’ve been complaining about for months is actually my life happening in real time, and maybe that’s the key to life. To realize I don’t have to love every single second of every single thing, but that I simply notice that it’s mine because one day it’s going to end.
Because today, I’m reminded that tomorrow is the end. Yes, it’s only the end of this golf season, but it’s also a startling reminder that she only has two more golf seasons in high school before she’s off to college. I’ve been watching this little girl on the golf course since she was in the fourth grade. I’ve been to every match, watched every chip and putt and drive. And in two years, she’s done.
It’s bittersweet.
