Don't Let This Happen

My daughters are leaving for Europe tomorrow. Four months, two backpacks, and an itinerary that is more vibe than plan.

I keep having two feelings at once. The first one is more physical. My heart actually aches. Part of it is that I've had the last year and a half with Isabel home, and we've built this post-collegiate cadence I'm so grateful for. It has been, honestly, so much fun. And now the house is about to get very quiet.

The second feeling surprised me. It's something closer to relief. They're doing the thing. Not someday. Now. And they're doing it together, which is its own kind of gift. Isabel and Lola, side by side, figuring out train schedules and splitting pastries in every town they visit.

Somewhere in the middle of all the packing, a quote I saved years ago came to mind.

Anne Lamott. She is the patron saint of this newsletter, the woman who called laughter "carbonated holiness." I love her. Nobody else writes like her: the jiggly thighs and the radical silliness sitting right next to the heartbreak, all in one run-on sentence.

Notice what's on her list of regrets. It isn't "you never made it to Europe." It's the memoir you didn't write. The swimming you skipped because your thighs were jiggly and your tummy was nice and comfortable. The staring off into space like a kid. Almost everything on Lamott's list is free. What it costs is permission we refuse to grant ourselves.

We live near the ocean. And the thing I'm proudest of, watching them zip those backpacks, is that they're still the kind of people who jump in. Not someday, when the water's warmer or the timing's better or the jobs are more secure. Now, while it's cold and thrilling and a little bit scary.

A four-month European adventure is a privilege. Not everyone can board that plane. But the deferral Lamott is warning about isn't about planes. It's about the smaller thing we do every week — filing the wish under later, because later feels safer.

And here's what I'd gently offer, especially right now: a lot of us deferred our things in exchange for stability. If the past year of layoffs has taught us anything, it's that stability was never the guaranteed trade we thought we were making. That's not a reason for panic. It's a reason to stop waiting for a safer moment that isn't coming.

So this week's reset is a question, not a task: What's your version of the ocean? The small, jiggly-thighed, slightly embarrassing thing you've been postponing until you're braver or thinner or less busy?

You don't have to book a flight. Just wade in and see how the water feels.

Tomorrow, I'll be the one crying at the curb, proud out of my mind, already counting down to the first picture or update I get.

Don't let this happen, Lamott says. She's not talking to my daughters. They're already in the water. She's talking to us.