Last Monday, August 19, I started Year 19 of homeschooling. I’m in Year 24 of motherhood. This has been my existence for half my life, and I feel as though it shouldn’t go by without some reflection.

My world has changed drastically from homeschooling a house of growing kids at multiple educational levels to homeschooling one almost adult. I’m the parent of adults and the teacher of a student who needs me more for guidance and record-keeping than instruction. For 25 years, my job has been to prepare the path for them to travel. Now it’s to be an observer and sometimes advisor as they forge their own way.

Of course, I’m walking with my youngest through this transition from my student to a student in the wide world and all the bureaucracy that entails. Parenting young adults is still parenting, with a lot more complications and restrictions.

But most of my work in the minute-by-minute parenting and labor-intensive aspects of homeschooling are past. I’m a cheerleader, an advisor, and occasional administrative support as they take the lead.

For the past few years, this inevitable phasing out has led to almost frantic thought and action trying to prepare for my own “what’s next.” What will I do and who will I be when I’m no longer a homeschooling mom?

I’ve fretted over that 25-year gap in my CV and the reality that my pre-homeschool career is no longer an option. With as much as half of my life still before me (I plan on being long-lived), does “what next” mean starting from Square One?

Sometime last spring it hit me hard that this is it. This is my final season as a homeschool mom. These are my last moments with the conversations and experiences unique to homeschooling, the final opportunities to learn alongside him as my vocation and prime responsibility. I’m overwhelmed with the sheer privilege of this life I’ve lived (hard as it has sometimes been) for the past quarter century.

So I am no longer asking or answering “What next?”

I am committing myself to Now. These moments, conversations, experiences. This year will be filled with a lot of lasts: last firsts and last lasts. I don’t want to miss them because I’m fretting about what’s next.

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for today has enough worries—and joys—of its own.