Skaftafell, Iceland — With her whole life ahead of her, our daughter will likely forget this moment in our family’s history, but I won’t.
I am sitting at a little wooden table in the tiny log cabin that is ours for the night here on a faraway coast in Iceland. The rain is coming down in sheets, blown diagonally by huge gusts of wind over an endless stretch of bright green fields. In the distance, I see towering black mountains made of lava, all laced in a thick, swirling white fog.
All week, we’ve been awed by the monumental scale of this massive, wild landscape and the tiny presence of man. A fence here, a few sheep there. White farmhouses dotting the distance. Every restaurant, every hotel, every car, every person walking is a speck in the expanse of fields, mountains, miles of crashing ocean surf.
In our cabin, everyone’s still asleep. It’s just me, the roaring sound of the rain, and the incredible sensation, every few minutes, of the cabin being shaken by the wind. That, and the haunted, surreal thought that this amazing, alternate universe will very soon end, giving way to the reality that has been moving towards us like another yawning, whirling storm.
In five days, we will travel back home to our little corner of the world in Marin County, California. And then, one day later, our daughter will begin her senior year of high school. The year that will end with her leaving home. It’s the lift-off. The beginning of the great letting go.
Along with our worldwide class of 2015-2016 Senior parents, this is an aching, bittersweet milestone in our family’s life. What lies before us is our last year together as our own, treasured, lovingly, painstakingly-built civilization of four.
How can we protect ourselves from giving it away to the stress and anxiety of the classic Senior Year? How can we not give it away to the grinding wheels of the college process machine?
Traveling is a great teacher, and being in this extraordinary place has helped crystalize some lessons I hope to use to frame the coming year. Maybe they can help you, too.
Designing and claiming time. We’ve always spent most of our vacations with our extended families, whom we love dearly. But this week has shown us the deep power and importance of spending time alone, as well as the treasure of discovering a new world together. What a novel and bonding experience it has been, to follow the itinerary pasted into our little black book, each day a new adventure and shared experience.
We hiked inside an extinct volcano one day, snorkeled in icy arctic waters the next (and by the way, never again)! We became an island unto ourselves. Just us in our rented station wagon, stuffed with our small assortment of belongings, our sole focus nothing more than living through the experience of each day.
Only now do I fully recognize the subconscious wisdom of our choice to take a trip like this, knowing that family vacations like this, just the four of us, are numbered. We can’t change that, but we can commit, as a family, to making time for just the four of us in ways large and small. Understanding in a new way how precious and finite this time together is, we can commit to not letting weekends disappear into homework and technology and obligatory plans. We can commit to designing more time to feeding the soul of our family.
Learning from our friends. Periodically on this trip, I’ve gone on Facebook and seen the posts rolling in from friends whose kids are leaving to college. “Is this really happening?” one friend says, a picture of her daughter next to a trunk load of bags. Then, just a few days later, a picture of her daughter waving goodbye, “Oh my God. It really is happening.”
I look at these friends’ posts and I am in awe. They’re doing it. They’re really doing it. I have no idea how, but I know that part of my job is to learn from and with them, learn from all the blogs and networks and resources I can find, how best to walk this road, so that my work does not become my children’s burden.
Cementing the blueprint of sister and brother. One of the greatest joys of this week has been to witness the uniqueness and potential of the sibling relationship, and the importance of feeding it with dedicated time. Without the distraction of school, friends or technology, our daughter and son connected in a way that they rarely have the chance to do. They laughed and played and deepened their bond through the simple act of sharing time and space and all the simple pleasures of a road trip in a new land.
I say it to my kids all the time, but I’ll make sure that I find ways to slip it in again and again this year: There is nothing, nothing like the relationship you will have with your sibling. Your brother, your sister, is the one person with whom you’ve shared your childhood. They are your witness. They are your family memory. They can be your lifelong partner in a way no one else ever can be.
After a lifetime of us trying to nurture your relationship to one another, now it’s in your hands. Make it your business to become connected this year on a new, independent level. Make time for outings just the two of you, even if it’s just doing errands, taking the dog for a walk. Be radical. Instead of going out to dinner with friends, go out to dinner with each other.
The point is, spend time without us parents. Get used to what it feels like to be alone together, so that when you leave home, it will be natural for your relationship to continue to grow independently. Cementing the blueprint for connection this year will help you make the transition to what your relationship will become when you’re not living in the same house.
This article was originally published on HuffPost.
