The Great 18 Year Experiment

A child is born without instructions. You learn to recognize the difference between the “I’m hungry,” cry and the “I’m exhausted, and just can’t figure out how to sleep,” cry. You stay up nights rocking her. You don’t get mad when she throws up on her rug. You cry when that little hand grips your finger for the first time. You have no idea if you are doing anything right, but she wakes up every morning so you are thankful.
The hours between naps seem endless. You take her on a trip and realize hotels don’t have baby food. You just make due mashing up banana. Eventually she walks and your life changes. You spend your days making sure she does not fall down the stairs. You cry when she does.
You teach her to look people in the eye when she speaks to them. She can’t say “f’s” and instead says, “Mommy, you are so sunny.” You send her to nursery school and revel in her being better at cutting with scissors than anyone her age. You know it is because of the hours of arts and crafts you have done together, not some highly developed cutting gene.  
You watch her make friends and not need you as her best companion. Your life changes and you are relieved. You get some of your days back as she spends time at school. She learns to ride a two wheeler all by herself and you see the joyous look of what freedom looks like her eyes. You cry, because you know it is the beginning of her leaving you. She is only six.
You try and instill in her a curiosity, and love of learning. She discovers the bigger world through travel and begs you take her to many different places. You do. When she is thirteen and you have been together too much you tell her to go out and explore a city on her own. She does. She loves it.
She discovers her own passion and places that belong only to her, like camp and basketball. You let her decide how to spend her time. It is less and less with you. You are relieved that she survives adolescence and thankful for her ability to set her own direction.
You take her to look at colleges and watch as she works to go to the place she has her heart set on. The years of work pay off. You have no idea if all the things you have done to get this person from baby, to child to woman were the right things. You had no manual to tell you exactly what to do.
You take her to the airport to put her on a plane to go off and leave you for her first semester of college as far away as she can be. You cry because she is really leaving you. She walks through security and does not look back. As your heart is breaking you know this is the moment you spent the last 18 years working towards. You sob anyway.