Jul 6, 2015 3 min read

This column has long been a documentary of my life: the things that change, the things that stay the same, and my feelings on the two extremes. Sometimes, I abhor change. Sometimes, I beg for it. But I am often most simply comfortable with the routine in which we live.

So you know I am really struggling this week when I tell you my oldest daughter has gotten her driver’s license. Talk about changes! She now can take herself to soccer practice and run errands for her father and me, should we be unable to handle them ourselves. I understand these are good things.

But I am struggling, not simply because I found out what her insurance premium will cost each year, but also because she just pulled down the driveway with my other two children in the car with her. Minus my husband, my whole earthly world just drove away entrusted to the hands of a 17-year-old girl.

It was not enough she was driving my son to band camp. She and my other daughter wanted to go shopping until it was time to pick him up. They have a mission trip with our church next week and needed supplies for their bags, I was told. (Read: modest one-piece swimsuits for their beach day.)

This whole, my-girls-are-out-on-the-town-together thing is hard for me. I think back to years ago, heading out with one or more of my sisters in the car, and the ornery things we did while out of our parents’ sight. I wonder what inside jokes will be born today between my daughters.

I am incredibly grateful for their friendship, which grows deeper daily, and I am excited for the experiences they will have as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into years. I know I have given them all I can give them in the sense of discipline, integrity and humility. I have taught them they can achieve what they work for, they will make mistakes and should apologize when they happen, and the whole process of their life is overseen and aided by God, whom they should trust with it all.

I know, however, they are still young and impressionable by what they see out in the world, that a desire for independence can make even the most responsible teenager form bad decisions, and that things can happen in the blink of an eye.

Some choices are permanent. Some are life-altering.

Please forgive me if I sound melancholy. I am truly grateful I can call my daughter and ask her to pick up a loaf of bread, a container of milk or a stick of butter, and she is capable of helping out my cause. I am grateful she is cautious and careful. I am grateful my children are growing to love one another.

I’m just struggling with all of the changes. It seems they are happening so fast.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.