Where We Are Meant To Be

 I see the ear to ear smiles in the pictures she sends me. I can hear happiness and contentment in the sound of her voice. I know she is happy in a way that she hasn't been in a long, long time. 

When I talked to her last she quietly told me that this is where she wants to be. In this community with these people. This is where she is meant to be. This is where she feels whole. 

She is young still and has a lot of life to live. Maybe she will change her mind in the next several years as she graduates from high school and then from college. Maybe she won't. 

What I do know is that she will never, ever forget these feelings. She has lived her life adrift. Feeling off kilter and alone. Never having a place to anchor herself. Not even having a  place where she can feel truly herself - even I fear among the 6 of us. I wonder if we protect her too much. Our loves stifles her in a way that theirs does not. 

I feel such deep happiness for her. I know that I will always be her mama. And I know that there is nothing that will replace her love for the five of us she will leave behind. We have given her the roots she needs to grow and become all that she is meant to be. Being out there with her community allows her to spread her wings. For the first time in her life, I am able to glimpse what her life might look like outside of us. What I see right now makes me feel at peace. It shows me what the arc of motherhood should feel like and I know that everything is as it should be. 

To feel known and loved and accepted just as she is. What a dream come true for her. To feel whole and complete - it is what I believe what we spend the entirety of our lives searching for. Some find that wholeness early on in life and some never find it. 

I imagine that she will head back out west multiple times a year now. I imagine that when she gets a job at 16 she will save all of her money to head out there as much as she can. The memories she creates while there will sustain her while she is finishing her growing here with us. 

I only know a small portion of the loneliness she feels. I know that when she is with them, she is not alone anymore. I know that when she is here with us she only feels partially alive. I know that when she is with her tribe she feels completely alive. This is what I want for her more than anything else. 

 She is where she is meant to be.