I don’t recall ever being along for the ride with one of my children, although in some sense I’ve probably been along for the ride, all along. I only understood my role as a mother in terms of providing, fixing, directing, doing, or finding immediate answers, etc. This summer I had the unanticipated realization that my role isn’t any of that now, regardless of what I understand. So here is where I noticed the transition.

Relieved.

Trying to get out the door I am wound up like a top, clutching details and boxes of Ana’s stuff in a nervous stranglehold. My job is to make sure we have everything we need, that’s what I do, and the pressure is on. Although I am only half put-together on a really good day, in some sense I believe I am responsible to make all this happen. My mission: get Ana moved into an apartment in Colorado Springs and delivered for her first day of work by next Wednesday, on time. But Colorado is over 1,700 miles and two time-zones away, and honestly, I can’t handle this much change. But like everything – here we go.

This all feels a little like giving birth. I am nervous and excited and scared-to-death all at the same time, and sweating. Here you are world: a shiny new baby girl, healthy, educated and in my mind, innocent …please handle with care. Ana takes one final sweep through her room to make sure she has everything. I ask her if she wants to take something from the house to remind her of home. She grabs one of my “painted pony” figurines which is perfect, something sure to remind her of me, her mother. We have to leave now, ready or not. My heart is racing, or breaking, I can’t tell which.

Ana popped in the driver’s seat of the used Jeep Grand Cherokee she just bought, with her own loan. She instinctively takes the wheel as we pull out of the driveway, all of her earthly possessions in a 4×6 U-haul. She is eager to get on the road. I am a little surprised that she wants to drive first, she seems to know what she is doing. It occurs to me that I don’t have the directions. Oh, Ana does. So I settle into the seat beside her and I realize that this is comfortable. I am relieved in some small way at this moment. We have made it to this point, college degree, chest of drawers, clothes and a million shoes in tow, computer in her tattered back-back. Here we go.

Within minutes Beavercreek Ohio is in her rear-view mirror. She drives pretty fast and with more confidence than I ever have on the road. I don’t think she notices my fidgeting, or that I have two sets of emotions going as I sit buckled in beside her. I’m excited to be with her for a whole week, headed “out West” where she has always wanted to be. It’s so cool to watch her catch this dream. On the other hand, I’m terrified that she is off on her own, and this time, so far away from me. I will have to drop her off and walk away and I can’t bare to think about that. It’s an awkward juncture. I can’t seem to get the temperature right in the car. It’s either freezing or so steamy that I can’t see through the windshield. Ana tells me to lay off the controls. Ok cool, she is driving, she can figure it out.

We glide through Indiana and it’s raining the whole time. Ana weaves in and out of traffic like it’s no big deal, she doesn’t mind it. She jockeys for position on the highway like a thoroughbred, born to run. I fight the urge to point out some of the more obvious risks she takes. Like in addition to the rain and the speed, she uses only her legs to steer the car sometimes. Her father always did this. Of all the things to inherit, why this? But I manage to let go of my fear because I don’t want to bicker and her confidence seems to be carrying us both.

I don’t take the wheel until after St. Louis. We stopped to look at the Gateway Arch, of course. Ana wanted to see it up close. I had recently watched a documentary about the architect of this structure. His name was Eero Saarinen. His father was Eliel Saarinen and was also a renowned architect. They both had a bunch of rocky personal relationships, including with each other. There was clearly some edgy competitiveness between them too. But Eero, the son, produced far better stuff in my opinion. I wonder about such family relationships, and bigger questions like do the ends ever justify the means? I can only hope so.

In any event, I get to drive now. Relatively speaking, I am a terrible driver and I am slow. It isn’t raining anymore, but we crawl through Missouri. Ana initiates some pleasant conversation and we listen to a book-on-tape, something by John Waters and its hilarious. I notice that I am loving this time with her and I am more or less relaxing, although driving too slow. Ana snaps at me for holding people up by driving in the fast lane, and for looking at my phone. Her instinct to criticize my dangerous behavior isn’t bridled. This trip is turning out to be educational. We are tired by this time so we stay the night in Kansas City Kansas, it’s across the river from Kansas City, Missouri. I didn’t know there were two of them.

After a quick night’s sleep in a pretty sketchy hotel, we jump in the car again. Ana pulls quickly and gracefully onto the highway, Route 70 West. This is one long route. We drink coffee and she controls the radio, switching back and forth between hip hop and country music throughout the day. I get to look out the window a lot and listen…pretty dancey stuff when it’s not country. I ignore the hip hop lyrics as best I can and I laugh out loud at some of the country songs. I am comfortable being mostly quiet in the passenger seat, and I remain clueless as to why these songs are good. I think at any given time popular music inserts itself boldly between generations, like a wall, creating an artistic separation that can’t really be penetrated if you are on the older side of it. I suppose you can dance to this stuff though which is good. I hope in my mind that Ana dances often, she should. When a song from my youth inadvertently comes on I sing all the words. I don’t remember if I liked “I shot the sheriff” when it was current, but I know it by heart. I am comforted by the flatness and the farms as we roll through Kansas. I know about flatness from living in Ohio for so long. It’s weird how knowing something real well can be confused with liking it. But it is both certain and familiar, two things I do like. I don’t want Kansas to end.

Colorado is coming up. Ana and I come alive in different ways as soon as we cross into this next state. It’s undoubtedly beautiful, but I know I am somewhere else, “out west”, which connotes “far away” to me. Ana is excited, she loves adventure and fresh air and mountains. I notice as we drive that the earth and sky and road are sucking us gently toward the mountains on the horizon. She points out every horse in every grassy pasture we see. While she drives in amazement at the beauty everywhere, I worry silently that her car will be sturdy enough for all this once it’s covered in snow. Does Colorado still feel peaceful and welcoming in the dead of winter? And the mountains, now becoming easier to see in some detail, I bet those are dangerous. Thoughts about her safety charge through my head but they are halted by the reality of her competence as she sits beside me. I decide not to bring up all the things she will need: a doctor, a dentist, a car mechanic… essential contacts to lay the foundation for security. I somehow know she is fully capable at this point. She has been plotting her independence for years, and here we are, in Colorado.

So this is where I notice the transition. Ana is capable and competent. She has thrown the barn doors of her life wide open and she has the reigns. I sit only as a passenger in her car, watching, not making it happen. She was only letting my hands clutch onto the details of her life. An over-whelmed backup sort of, but reliable.  It’s a startling realization and it gives me a chance to exhale I guess.  We are two deeply connected people, even though I am not in charge.  And we are on different sides of a generation. Her opportunities and the life she creates are unfamiliar to me.  But she isn’t an innocent baby being dropped off far away.  She is a prepared young woman determined to light out for her own territory (Huck Finn).  We look at the same mountain with the same sense of “Oh my God, it’s incredible”. I am happy to look at it from the solid ground, and she can’t wait to climb every pathway to the top of it. So I am going to watch her do that, proudly. She is my girl, and she got herself here. I was lucky to be along for the ride.