Lessons

I am very aware today of my changing role in my daughters’ lives.  One is on a performing tour in Europe, where she’s learning lessons – both life and professional – that we can’t always comprehend, much less teach. Two posted a comment on her “wall” to the effect that she has so much to learn from the other students with whom she’ll be sharing her college experience.

Some of the lessons and the people teaching them are happy and some not so much.  Learning that Bulgarian gypsies earn at least part of their living by stealing shoulder bags from unsuspecting American girls is surely a lesson. I suppose there is a lesson to be had from a tour roommate who makes unflattering posts about you on a social networking site. Dealing with these and a hundred lesser annoyances and still being ready for curtain provides an important lesson. But then, so does the experience of standing on a hundred-years decrepit stage and letting each creak and pop inform you of the thousands of dancers and singers who’ve stood in this spot, all different from you but all very much you as every one of them wanted to share something of themselves through their performance.

Being told that MIT wanted her to come study there provided Two with a lesson in validation of her journey. And getting to know through conversation with other class of ’15 students just how many smart people are out there in the larger world is definitely a lesson.  Embracing the prospect of learning from each and all of them is a huge lesson.

Not all the lessons are being learned by the daughters. Letting go but staying ready – biggie. Loving without possessing is no small thing. Finding out that we really don’t know our daughters is a liberating lesson that holds out the promise of a lifetime of learning together.

When the girls were younger, it was up to us to shape their lessons, to determine what they needed at each juncture and figure out how to frame it for them.  No more.

We’re forever past the point at which we have any control over which lessons are laid before them. Our role now is mostly to listen. And occasionally, help them absorb and understand the lessons their worlds are teaching them.

And that’s where our learning begins.