Photo Credit Nuno Silva
The Age of Almosts
BY HEATHER REID
hirteen is an age of almosts.
Almost grown, almost ready,
almost sure. And parenting a
thirteen-year-old? It’s like helping someone pack for a journey you can’t take with them.
Lately, as I watch my nearly 14-year-old son grow more independent by the day, I find myself standing in two places at once: one foot planted in this present moment, watching him stretch toward the horizon, and the other back in the past, remembering what it felt like to be thirteen myself. To be both hungry for freedom and desperate for someone to quietly hold the net. With Mother’s Day on the horizon, I think about my mom and how she stood in this same spot with me, watching and worrying and letting go in her way. There’s something uncanny about watching your child navigate a moment you once lived, now seeing it from both sides.
T