In about 10 days, Julia will be home for the summer.

What a strange, surreal, wonderful thing to write.

There are bursts of growth that happen in every life and marriage. Somewhere in the top ten most memorable milestones lives the year your first child leaves home.

We haven’t seen Julia since Christmas break. At spring break she chose to go on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. It was a life changing trip for her and I’m so glad she had the opportunity! But, flights are expensive and coming home for a quick weekend visit wasn’t an option.

I’ll never forget the first week she visited home in the fall. I wanted to micromanage every second. I was fine if she wanted to spend time with friends, as long as they were all within 10 feet of me. I was willing to feed them, after all.

Brian sweetly pulled me aside and spoke incredible words of wisdom to me. (Oh, did you think I was exaggerating above? Nope, 100% serious).

He told me we were setting the tone for all visits home from here forward. He gently reminded me of a time we were in college and how our parents embraced our visits home, no matter how brief or how full the car was with laundry or how empty our wallet was.

Goodness. He is a smart man.

Thankfulness and space are not always an easy gift for me to give, but I want to be thankful for the time she gifts to us and give her space to keep swimming out to the middle of the pool on her own.

It has been a wonderfully strange, very fast year. Nate will finish 10th grade soon and his friends have filled our home with wonderful laughter as our home changed from movies about Jane Austen to how many times Liam Neeson can threaten to find someone. Riley will finish 2nd grade and is working harder than ever to really kick dyslexia’s booty. Mary Alice makes me laugh and Sebastian melts me.

I did it. I missed her like crazy, but we made it through.

Summer can’t get here fast enough!