Dear fellow loved ones of high school seniors — this one’s for you.
If you are like me, with a high school senior soon to be off on their own, this season is really exciting. It’s also quietly breaking my heart. And nobody’s talking about that enough.
Your senior barely glances up when you walk in. Their weekends are full, but none of it includes you. They’re sprinting toward a future that needs you less with every passing week. And underneath all that pride you absolutely feel, something else has moved in. Something that sits in your chest at night when the house gets quiet.
Grief, maybe. A loneliness you weren’t prepared for. A resentment you feel ashamed to even whisper, because aren’t you supposed to just be happy for them?
We are happy for them. Of course we are. But we’re also losing something. Something real, something irreplaceable, something that doesn’t have a clean name yet.
Both things are true. Both things deserve to be felt.
The Feelings Nobody Talks About
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