Yesterday, my son received his driver’s license. Then he did the thing: he got in the car, buckled his seatbelt, waved, and drove away on his own for the first time.

I was surprised by how okay I was. Not because it didn’t matter, but because something in me has been quietly preparing for this for a long time. Growth does that. It doesn’t usually arrive all at once (although it can thrust itself upon us, uninvited). It often comes in small, almost unnoticeable shifts. Practice drives. Longer leashes. Trust built mile by mile.

That’s how life tends to work for all of us. We imagine change as something sudden and dramatic, but more often it’s cumulative. It’s the child who doesn’t need you to walk them into the building anymore. The job you finally feel steady in, or the one you realize you’re ready to leave. The body that doesn’t move the way it used to, or the grief that no longer takes your breath away but still walks beside you. We grow into these moments without realizing it, until one day something happens that makes us aware of how much has already changed.

Letting go isn’t the same as losing. It’s a kind of faithful release; recognizing that what we nurtured, protected, and carried was always meant to move beyond us, carrying it (and us) forward in a new form.

Life keeps inviting us into these moments where we loosen our grip and trust what has been formed. Moments where we discover that growth, while bittersweet, is also deeply good.

My wish for you this week, Reader, is that when change shows up in your life, you will notice how much you’ve already grown into it. I hope you’ll meet those tender moments with trust instead of fear, gratitude instead of grasping, and a quiet confidence that love does not disappear when things move forward. It simply travels differently. That's the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa ​

P.S. I may not be this chill when he drives out of our 960-person town! 😂