when you don’t see the point.

On the road that leads to the field where Mosely plays soccer every week there stands a solitary stop sign.

It is not located where a stop sign should be located.

There is no apparent rhyme nor reason for this stop sign.

No traffic could possibly come from any other direction and it is simply placed in the curve of a road.

I don’t know why.

I think about that stop sign twice every week.  Once when we drive to her game and once when we drive to her practice.

I usually come to the classic rolling stop.

Silly stop sign.

I don’t see the point.

There it is  – nothing in front.  Nothing behind.  No curve.  No adjoining road.  Probably a plan for a future road.

But not for now.

Something down the road, but not in the present.

I just don’t see the point.

And thinking about that stop sign twice weekly has made me think about my parenting role currently.

My parenting-of-a-teen role.

Which made me want to jot down a few thoughts.

Which I did.

Here.

In a letter.

(Because I heart letters.)

Dear Riley (and dear me too),

Life is not about us.

It’s not about me and it’s not about you.

We are not the star.

Not the main attraction.

Look around.

Don’t wait until you are old to learn this.

Let me tell you a secret.

We didn’t bring you home to finish your high school education because we thought you would become valedictorian this way.

We brought you home because you were allowing the fast-paced nature of high school to fill up your days and overflow your thoughts.

Your eight-hour school day and your three-hour nightly homework load led you to believe that all of your life focused on yourself.

That you were the priority.

And that nothing else came first until you had finished all of your school duties.

And you had no time to push your brother in a swing and no time to share a snack and a chat with your sister and no time to help with dinner and no time to play a game and no time to sit still.

It was all so much busy work.

Which you say you loved.

And you say you miss.

And I believe you.

I believe you miss all that distraction.

All that noise.

All that busy-ness that allowed you to never sit still and to never face the sound of your own heart.

It’s probably pretty unfamiliar to you, isn’t it?

You’ve spent a short lifetime working hard on drowning out the inner noise with gobs and gobs of outer noise.

You’ve done pretty well.

It’s so easy to become an expert in that volume distortion.

I know.

But, listen –

You don’t learn to serve others by serving yourself.

Here’s what I’m trying to say.

Lean in to us, just a little.

Rest in the knowledge that, for the next two years, you still get a bit of a guide, a bit of a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

And trust,

just trust,

even when you don’t see the point.

Even when (especially when) you feel as if we are your stop sign out of place on your road.

When you believe we are your slow motion.

When the stop sign seems unnecessary and the slowing down is the exact opposite speed you want to travel.

Just trust.

Just trust.