Two Flew Out Of The Cuckoo's Nest

Today marks yet another passage of time for me. My second daughter turned eighteen today, leaving only one left under my parental wing to guide and mold, hopefully into a well adjusted, functioning adult over the next four years of her teenage life. I must admit, I am not sure what to do with myself. I always had three girls and now I have one girl and two women. While my oldest still lives here with her boyfriend and infant son, my newly adult daughter moved out last week, making her the first birdie to leave Mama's nest. It was an incredibly emotional and difficult day for me. All my parental fears came flooding to the surface. I worried that I had not taught her enough, showed her enough or experienced enough with her. In the end, however, I had to accept that I had done the very best that I could do with the circumstances and tools at my disposal. I had to become at peace with that and that was perhaps that hardest thing to do. Or so I thought. Today, I realize that this day is the hardest thing I have to do.Today she is an adult and I have to now let go of the reins of authority and instead pick up the reins of friendship. Today I have to allow her to make her own mistakes and learn her own lessons without me there to try and cushion all the blows that life will deal her as she does these things. Today I have to trust...in her and everything my work over the last 18 years has taught her and trust that it has been enough. This is extremely hard for me. I have had my trust shattered and it has been a very long road back with many speed bumps and pot holes along the way. But for her, I will summon all my courage, all my will and strength and do just that...trust. We can't hold them forever. Eventually they grow up and have to fly on their own. It's a double edged sword. I am so beyond proud of the person she has become, the goals she has set for herself and succeeded at and I am looking forward to seeing what she does with her life and the lessons and morals I have taught her. But on the other hand, there is still that claws deep parental fear, the mama lion who needs to be able to protect her cub. I don't think we ever loose that as parents. We spend almost 2 decades of our lives teaching them, watching over them, guiding them and protecting them. We can't possibly  be expected to just shut that off one day because they have turned the age of adulthood. I made a lifelong commitment the day I brought each of them into this world and although there have been many rough patches I have managed to keep those commitments. I promised to protect them, love them, shelter them and educate them and I have worked hard and tirelessly to make sure those were promises I never broke. I hope in the eyes of my two young adults that I have succeeded and I hope that when my youngest becomes an adult that she will know that everything I have ever done has been to keep the promise that I made to her when she was born. It's really all we can hope as parents.
Namaste, be blessed.