I Thought I Had More Time.

When Remi was placed in my arms at birth, I wept with the kind of gratitude you can only earn after twelve years of waiting, wondering, and white-knuckling your way through infertility.

She wasn’t just a baby.

She was the embodiment of every prayer I whispered, every baby shower I skipped, and every negative test I buried at the bottom of the trash can.

And now… I’m taking her to college.

How did this happen so fast?

How did we go from sleep-training to senior portraits in what feels like one long, messy blink?

It’s not that I’m falling apart—

Well, okay…

I am falling apart.

But not because I don’t know who I am without her.

I made sure of that.

I didn’t disappear into motherhood.

I stayed tethered to my marriage, my friendships, my calling, my passions.

I’ve got work to do and a husband to flirt with.

I’ve got Rocco to smother like a baby seal.

And I will continue to champion women, to make you laugh, and to ask the hard questions that make us better.

But still… I will miss her.

I will miss being loved and mocked in the same sentence.

I will miss watching true crime documentaries with someone who insists on talking through every single one.

I will miss her sitting on the bathroom floor while I try to poop in peace, just so she can process the events of 6th period.

I will miss her sideways glances.

Her sarcasm.

Her TikTok commentary.

Her musical taste.

Her enormous, beating heart.

I didn’t want this ride to be fast.

After waiting so long to get on, I thought I deserved the scenic route.

I thought those of us who waited and fought and prayed for babies should get a little extra time.

Like the universe owed us one more slow dance.

But no one gets extra time.

We just get to love them wildly while we have them,

and then trust that the world will be kind to the pieces of our heart we let walk around out there.

So here I go.

Dropping my daughter off at the University of Arkansas—

handing her over to a new chapter, a new home, a new beginning.

I hope they know what they’re getting.

I hope they treasure her.

Because I’m delivering to them my Purple Heart—

the prize I won after the war I fought.

And when I drive away, I’ll do what many of you have done, or will do one day:

I’ll cry,

I’ll breathe,

I’ll thank God for the gift of raising her,

…and then I’ll probably eat an entire Crumbl cookie in the Target parking lot.

With you in this tender ache,

Melissa