My daughter (only child) turns 21 on Sunday. One of the fun things about having my offspring that old, is the well-that's-all-over relief on seeing people with younger teenagers. When you think your world is going to cave in and they're going to destroy themselves or be forced to live with wolves when they move out, when actually, it's just part of everything about maturing. My daughter for years would tell me about the stuff she did 6 months or a year before, and my hair would stand on end. It's been a while, but I still think, ok what are you doing that I'm going to find out about a year from now? And we still fight, but it's not so personal anymore.

Another fun thing is the inner smile when parents whose kids are all under the age of 10 have opinions on child-raising and how *their* kids are never going to act *that way* because they're being raised with the proper loving/strict/religious/NewAge/whatever parenting. I love how the humility sets in over the years. Your younger kids have the advantage of your experience, which your older kids couldn't have.

Me too on the meditation. Clearing the mind right now would be a good thing, but I have trouble with that even in yoga, except in the most difficult positions. I like what you wrote about not worrying so much about what other people think. Wish you could wave a magic wand and make it so for both of us. Letting go and moving on is so hard.