My daughter Riley’s first day at ISI Language School in Kyoto, Japan.

Just to set the mood, I’m writing this from 39,001 feet just above the Bering Sea on my way to Japan. I’m traveling there for the next two weeks with my 25 y/o daughter Riley who’s relocating to Kyoto for the next chapter of her life.

So ima just dive right in while all these emotions are still floating on the surface.

Let me just start by saying that being a parent is one helluvan odyssey. Like, the most odysseyest of odysseys. And the journey doesn’t get easier the older our kids get, even though we all wish it did. We just become marginally-more equipped to deal with their adult-sized lives as we go.

Some quick backstory for context…

Today is a day I wasn’t sure might ever come. But, thanks to equal parts patience, perseverance & positivity, it came. It’s the day when my daughter realizes her dream of moving her life to Japan to study the language and to teach. A dream that’s been in the works for what seems like forever. And I’m the lucky one who gets to fly over with her (and her ride-or-die rescue cat Freddie) to help them start their new adventure together.

Needless to say, my heart space is filled with more emotions than I have the capacity to express. Or to hold. Because this trip has been years in the making and fraught with much disappointment, frustration, many course corrections, and tons of resilience.

It’s an adventure that was supposed to start in March of 2020 but, like most people’s plans, her trip was ultimately derailed by the pandemic. For three long years. Until today. Because today, at 5:45AM this morning, we boarded a flight to Japan to fly a million hours to Kyoto, which is where Riley will call home for an undetermined amount of time. And therein lies some of the heartache I’m feeling right now.

While she’s initially going over to attend language school for the next 14 months, she doesn’t have a return ticket. That’s because her plan is to graduate from language school and spend some time teaching in a Japanese public school. How much time, we have no idea, which is one of the main reasons why this trip is so emotionally raw for me. We’re not working with an end date, and that’s an unsettling feeling when you’re a parent sending your child to the other side of the world.

Now, we’ve already been through the college years (she went to BU which was close by), so we’ve done that whole goodbye routine. And she spent a semester abroad in Ireland her junior year, but that was only three months and we visited after two. This move to Japan is a whole new ballgame. Not only is the time difference 14 hours ahead, making communication a crazy challenge, but she’s 6,703 miles from our front door. And that’s a lotta miles, so we’re planning on seeing each other every six months. Problem is, I don’t like that, not one bit, but I have to find a way to make that be ok, and that’s on me. So while I’m hopeful the sting of her being that far will lessen with time, I’m not making any promises in that regard. And I’m reconciled that it may just suck for the next 14+ months no matter what I think or feel.

The bottom line here is that whatever sadness I may have felt over the years watching my daughters launch into their lives pales in comparison to what I’m feeling right here in this moment watching our in-flight Flight Tracker tick it’s way around the world. See, I’m going to miss my daughter. Terribly. And that’s it. There is nothing else. Someone, like her sister, who I call my best friend. And while I know this kind of thing is exactly what we raise our children to have the courage to do, the mom part of me is dying inside, wishing she was seven and just wanted to go to the playground and get a Choco Taco.

See, I’ve never been the kind of parent who asks myself if it ever gets easier to watch my girls go off into the world, because I know it doesn’t. That’s because it’s supposed to be hard. And beautiful. And agonizing. And nerve-wracking. And sad. And joyful. And all the other things. As they get older, we just feel a different kind of longing that’s compounded by all the layers of adult-type things they accumulate over time. We long to stay in their lives. We long to be needed. We long to be wanted. We long to be included. We long to be everything we’ve always been to them, even though we can’t be all those things anymore. Not in all the old ways.

But here’s the unexpected blessing I’m slowly realizing the more miles away from home we fly… Now, instead of me teaching my daughter to be a resilient human and encouraging her to trust herself and take chances and embrace life, she’s reminding ME of all those things. She’s the one leading by example and letting me draw strength from her perseverance and fearlessness. And I think that’s a pretty damn amazing full-circle moment.

Watching our kids grow up and take these leaps into their new lives is a wild process with so many unexpected learnings and twists along the way. So, while I have no clue what my daughter’s future holds, I know she’s running toward it with passion and grit and enthusiasm—a signal to me that she’s ready to tackle any challenge that stands in her way. It also gives me reassurance that we’ve done our job as parents.

And I can live with that. Because there’s great power in letting our kids go (even when we don’t want to).

Lisa Sugarman is a parenting author, a nationally syndicated columnist, a podcast host, and a survivor of suicide loss, losing her dad Jim at age ten. She’s also a passionate advocate for mental health awareness & suicide prevention and is a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project, supporting LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. Lisa writes the syndicated opinion column It Is What It Is and is the author of How To Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids And Be Ok With It, Untying Parent Anxiety, and LIFE: It Is What It Is, available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and everywhere books are sold. Sugarman is also the co-host of the podcast LIFE Unfiltered on iTunes and iHeartRadio, and a regular contributor on Healthline Parenthood, GrownAndFlown, TODAY Parents, Thrive Global, Care.com, LittleThings, and More Content Now. Lisa lives with her husband and two daughters just north of Boston. Visit her online at www.lisasugarman.com.