Sometimes I forget that you aren’t yet fully grown up… that you still have growing to do.

You carry yourself with so much confidence now, so much certainty, that I’m tricked into thinking you’re already standing solidly in the world. And then something small reminds me — a look, a question, a crack in your voice — and I remember that you’re still becoming. Still figuring things out. Still learning where the edges of yourself are.

But when we go outside, it becomes obvious. Your eyes still sparkle the way they did when you were little — the same wide curiosity, the same “What’s down there?” instinct that used to send you bounding down the trail ahead of me. Out here, the pressure of being a “big kid” slides off your shoulders. The expectations, the school stress, the need to act older than you feel — it all loosens its grip. Your explorer mode comes back out of hiding, and I get to see the truest version of you again.

And honestly? It’s where I find the truest version of me, too.

Being in the trees reminds me of who you were before the world started asking so much of you. It reminds me of who I was before life sped up and the days filled with schedules, deadlines, commutes, and the quiet ache of wanting to get everything right. Out here, neither of us has to perform. Neither of us has to be anything other than exactly who we are.

It’s here on the trail that we both feel most free — you from the weight of growing up, and me from the weight of watching you do it too quickly.

So if there’s one thing I hope you carry with you as you keep becoming yourself, it’s this: You can always come back to the places that make you feel like you again.

You can always return to the trail — and I’ll meet you there, every time.

–Mom