The Space Between

There are moments in life when your head and your heart exist in completely different places.

Your head knows what's happening.

It has planned for it.

Prepared for it.

Counted down to it.

Your heart, however, has its own timeline.

I've come to realize that while our minds can understand change long before it arrives, our hearts often need a little more time to catch up.

That was certainly true for me.

For the better part of the last year, my life revolved around getting my daughter ready for college.

Applications.

Campus visits.

Financial aid.

Housing assignments.

Packing lists.

Shopping trips.

Move-in logistics.

There was always one more thing to do.

As a single mom, that's a rhythm I know well.

What I didn't expect was how quickly it would all happen. She didn't decide on Penn State until mid-April. A few weeks later, she graduated from high school. Three days after returning home from our final equestrian competition in June, we packed the car and drove to campus. There was barely time to catch our breath, let alone process that our lives were about to change.

For the past five years, it's been just the two of us. Together we've navigated divorce, layoffs, career transitions, health challenges, financial uncertainty, college applications, and all of the beautifully ordinary moments in between. There was always something to solve, somewhere to be, or a decision that couldn't wait.

And I happily obliged.

When someone else depends on you, you don't spend much time wondering who you are or what comes next.

You figure it out.

You adapt.

You keep moving.

So that's exactly what I did.

Until there was nothing left to prepare.

The boxes were unpacked.

The bed was made.

The hugs lingered a little longer.

And then I got back into my car and drove home.

I cried for most of the drive.

Partly because I already missed her. Partly because I was incredibly proud of her. I was excited for everything that was ahead. I was worried about everything I couldn't protect her from. 

And with every mile that brought me closer to home, I felt something I hadn't expected.

Anxiety.

Not because I doubted she would be okay.

But because I wasn't quite sure who I would be when I walked through my own front door.

Intellectually, I knew exactly what I was driving toward.

An empty bedroom.

A quieter house.

No voice calling down the hallway.

My head had known all of that for months.

My heart hadn't caught up.

I had been so busy preparing my daughter for this next chapter that I hadn't realized I hadn't prepared myself.

Not really.

It wasn't the silence that caught me off guard.

It was the absence of the ordinary.

No, "How was your day?"

No conversations that started in the kitchen and somehow ended an hour later on the couch.

No dogs wandering between us, hoping someone might accidentally drop a snack.

No shared routines that had quietly become the rhythm of our life.

It wasn't one big thing I missed.

It was a thousand little things.

The next day, we FaceTimed.

She’d had an exhausting day. The dogs heard her voice and came running to the phone.

She smiled.

Then she cried.

For just a moment, she was home again.

And in that moment, all I wanted her to know was that home hadn’t disappeared.

Without thinking, I said, “Don’t worry. I’m saving your spot on the couch.”

It wasn’t something I’d planned to say.

It simply came out.

But as soon as I heard the words, I realized they carried far more meaning than I intended.

I wasn’t asking her to come home.

I wasn’t asking her to miss me.

I was reminding her that she still belonged.

That home would always be here.

That she could go build a beautiful life without wondering if she’d lost the one she’d come from.

A few minutes later, I found myself reassuring her that there was nothing happening at home she needed to worry about.

Of course, that wasn’t entirely true.

She was missing home.

She was missing the dogs.

She was missing our routines.

And I was certainly missing her.

But she didn’t need to carry my sadness while she was trying to build her new life.

My job wasn’t to make her feel guilty for leaving.

My job was to help her feel safe enough to stay.

“I miss you, Mom,” she said, her voice trembling.

And in that moment, I realized her tears weren’t just about being homesick.

They were about missing the comfort of everything we had built together.

A loving home.

A safe place.

Her favorite meals.

Clean clothes folded without her asking.

A place where she never had to earn belonging.

And in that moment, I realized something else.

I had done my job.

As we talked, another sentence found its way out before I’d really thought about it.

“This is the next chapter of our relationship—not the ending of one.”

The moment I said it, I realized I needed to hear those words just as much as she did.

Because somewhere between move-in day and that FaceTime call, something shifted.

I stopped mourning what we had lost.

And I started appreciating what we still had.

Our relationship hadn’t become smaller.

It had simply changed shape.

As I reflected on those first few days, another realization quietly surfaced.

For years, I'd attached so many hopes for my own future to this milestone.

When she goes to college...

More time.

Grow the coaching business.

Sell the house.

Move somewhere new.

Meet my person.

Travel.

Build a life that feels fully, unapologetically mine.

Somewhere along the way, I had convinced myself that helping her launch would somehow launch me too.

Instead, I found myself standing in a different kind of uncertainty.

I remember thinking,

I'm only at step one.

Not because my dreams had changed.

They hadn't.

Not because I'd stopped believing in them.

I haven't.

But because I realized that life doesn't magically come into focus just because you've reached a milestone.

The dreams were still there.

The possibilities were still there.

So was I.

The only thing that had changed was the chapter.

For so many years, I knew exactly who I needed to be.

Mom.

Provider.

Problem solver.

Safe place.

Every decision had a filter.

"What's best for her?”

Now, for the first time in a very long time, I have the freedom to ask a different question.

What do I want?

For years, I imagined this season would feel exhilarating.

Like possibility.

Like freedom.

Like finally having the space to build the life I'd been quietly dreaming about.

And in many ways, it does.

But what I never anticipated was how reluctant I would be to let go of the life I already had.

Not because I didn't want my daughter to spread her wings.

I did.

With every ounce of my being.

But because I loved our ordinary life.

I loved hearing her come through the front door.

I loved our conversations on the couch.

I loved our routines.

I loved being her safe place.

Love doesn't become smaller when life changes.  It simply learns a new rhythm.

For a while, I called that feeling "stuck."

But I don't think that's what it was at all.

I wasn't resisting the future.

I was honoring the past.

The truth is, my life is already moving forward.

I'm building my coaching business.

I'm writing a book.

I'm showing up for work every day.

I'm dreaming about where I might live next.

I'm still hoping to find my person.

My feet have already taken the next step.

My heart is simply taking a little longer to catch up.

Maybe that's the space between.

Not the place where life stands still.

But the place where your feet are already walking toward what's next... while your heart turns around one last time to honor what you're leaving behind.

A few days after I wrote most of this, we FaceTimed again.

This time felt different.

She stepped outside for a little privacy and walked through the quad as we talked.

She'd ordered a pair of blue-light glasses from Amazon, and somehow, those simple glasses made me see something I hadn't before.

She didn't look like my little girl.

She didn't even look like my teenager.

She looked like a young woman.

She laughed as she showed me the dozens of rabbits that seem to have taken over campus. 

Then she told me about her first pop quiz.

"Mom," she said. "It was HARD."

We both laughed.

I reminded her that college isn't about getting everything right on the first try. It's about learning, adjusting, and giving yourself the grace to grow into something new.

Only a few days earlier, I'd been lying awake worrying that she wouldn't find her people.

Now she was making plans for smoothies and ice cream, and later that evening she was heading to the college baseball field to watch the Fourth of July fireworks with a new friend.

She's doing the thing.

And I couldn't be prouder.

I've also noticed something else.

Each day we talk a little less.

Not because we're drifting apart.

Because she's settling in.

We text throughout the day.

We plan our FaceTime calls instead of assuming they'll happen.

And I've found myself looking forward to them in a different way.

Not because I need reassurance that she's okay.

But because I genuinely love hearing about the life she's beginning to build.

Maybe that's what this season has been teaching me all along.

Love doesn't become smaller when life changes.

It simply learns a new rhythm.

For a while, I thought I was grieving an ending.

Now I realize I was standing at the beginning of something neither of us could fully see yet.

Sometimes the hardest transitions aren't difficult because we're afraid of what's ahead.

Sometimes they're difficult because we're deeply grateful for what we're leaving behind.

And maybe that's the quiet work of this season.

Not rushing my heart to catch up with my head.

But trusting they'll meet each other when they're both ready.

If you're finding yourself in your own space between—whether it's a career transition, the end of a relationship, a child leaving home, or simply the quiet realization that life is asking something new of you—I hope you'll give yourself permission to linger there for a while.

Not because you'll find all the answers overnight.

But because the space between isn't empty.

It's where gratitude and possibility learn to coexist.

My daughter is exactly where she's supposed to be.

And I'm beginning to believe... maybe I am too.