”I'm going to a bar!” says my little daughter.

The words trigger an earthquake inside me, it hits my bones and squeezes my pupils out, making me stiffen.

As I ask myself if I heard correctly, heat rises in my cheeks and my shoulders rise. The words run in circles inside me, and I take a deep breath to stay standing on the floor. My entire rationale fights with my maternal feelings. My child becomes a young person, my child becomes an adult.

And at the same time, my child, my child. A child. She's still in my armpit – yes, she's in my uterus – and then suddenly she wants to go to the bar.

While the natural disaster rages inside me, everything is normal on the outside. In a few years she will be fully grown, she will be followed through life with her peers with cautious, wise and curious steps, and in fact years of after-school care and corona lockdowns have spared me from premature night worries. She is now completely ready to leave. Still, I cringe and close my eyes.

”Mom, I'm going to a bar,” she says again.

There is nothing threatening in her words, only directness and life. I feel my lips tighten and try to sound natural as I answer her:

”Okay, yeah…where are you going?”

She doesn't know it completely, but enough for Vesterbro.

I feel like I have to let go. Let her out onto the bike path, into the high energy of the city. Like I did with the oldest, who is only a few years older. Maybe it's worse with the youngest.

That Saturday night she cycles out of my arms. And I start wandering around my house. Restless, nervous, lost. The dark windows.

I lose sight and go to bed in the summer twilight.

But I am wide awake while she grows away from me.

I get up and look at myself in the mirror. It's foggy and I can't see myself clearly.

Where does the shaking come from and now the fog in the mirror? Is it my own fear of losing value, of having played out my role as a mother? Am I afraid of losing her or my identity?

Yes. And yes.

When Baby starts to walk, I feel the loss of the child. The loss of the symbiosis. At the same time, I feel that something has been achieved. She and her big sister are ready to fly, their tail feathers are long enough to hold their direction, their wings strong enough to dare to leave the nest and me. They grow into strong and independent young women, full of life and desire. I wipe the mist off the mirror, squint my eyes and look at myself. In the tension between the joy of the child's ability and the sadness of the loss of the loved one, also in addiction, I meet myself in a breath. I let the inhalation fill me up and hold my breath for a moment, while there is space in me to feel the potential that the separation will provide. I lean in with trust towards the changes that will come and breathe out with the awareness of spaciousness, so that a new relationship can grow between us over time.

The bar in Vesterbro will become a place for train trips through Europe and other journeys without a return ticket, both out into the world and into new structures, new contexts, where I will not be asked for permission or advice.

I'll probably be demisting the mirror again in the summer twilight. Both next year. And the year after that again. My clarity, my love and my flexibility are a prerequisite for a shared journey. Especially when my Baby just takes to the bar.