In the back of my mind, it is on a constant loop. It replays every so often at the weirdest moments in my life these days. Am I Tracy Chambers? Diana Ross’ Tracy Chambers from the 1975 movie “Mahogany”? Am I a Black woman still trying to figure out this thing called life in my middle age? “Do you know where you’re going to? Do you get what you’re for? When you look behind you, there is no open door. What are you hoping for? Do you know?” If I am honest about it, honest, I can pinpoint exactly the moment I began to feel the weight of this song in the very essence of myself. When my youngest daughter, Constance-Monet, the last of four, graduated from Blake High School of the Performing and Creative Arts this past spring, I was beyond ecstatic. Overjoyed. She was embarking on a new journey. A grand adventure. Life is opening up a path on which only she can venture and forge a distinct path. I will assist and continue to parent her, but my parenting will slowly transform as she tries out her wings and flies solo. In theory, I am built for this. I know the mechanics of parenthood and my role within it. I have successfully raised three other children to the stage of adulthood with my husband. I know how this works. But what makes this moment in my life feel as if I have cement boots on my feet making it difficult to move?

For the first time since 1991, I do not have a child enrolled in elementary, middle, or high school. That’s profound. Maybe I would not be feeling this angst had my youngest daughter made the decision to enroll in the halls of higher education this new fall semester. However, she has made the choice to take a gap year. My eyes turned into narrow slits when she suggested this idea earlier in the year. Of course, the closer we got to graduation, the more I tried to persuade her to move straight into university life, and the more unmovable she became. She even had the audacity to point out that Malia Obama had taken a gap year before she enrolled at Harvard. Just remembering that conversation makes me lose my breath. Maybe if I was former First Lady Michelle Obama, I would have a clear-cut sense of where I was heading at this juncture in my life. Maybe if I was Michelle Obama the world would look a little different to me and if I was feeling a little doubtful about my place in it, I could tell my assistant to schedule a day trip to Paris or a weekend jaunt to Tahiti with Barack and recharge and get back in the game. However, I am not the former first lady. My husband is not Barack Obama. And, well, he is definitely not Billy Dee Williams. More like a Terrance Howard. But that’s neither here nor there. For the very first time in 31 years, I did not do any school shopping. In fact, I did not have a clue as to when school started. There were no heated arguments over school clothes. No one was rolling their eyes when I wandered down memory lane about my own first day of school back in the ’70s and ’80s and saying “Yeah Mom. We know. Gym shoes were for gym.” The month of July passed without my husband making a brief stop at Staples or Target after work and coming home with bags and bags filled with pencils, pens, notebooks, paper, and folders. No one was fussing about the backpacks that I picked out and begging their Dad to return them for something cool. For the first time in 31 years, there was silence.

My sister friends, whose children have long since flown the coup, all say that this time in my life should be the point of freedom. I should be feeling waves of excitement at having a blank schedule where I can plan to do whatever I want to with the rest of my life. No more parent-teacher conferences to schedule, no more surprise pop ups at school (something I did often when my sons were school-aged). No more frequent Sam’s Club runs to fill the pantry to the brim with lunch snacks, juice packets, and fruit cups for school lunches. No more rush hour traffic to drop off and pick up children from school and afterschool activities and jobs. Time to par-tay, they said. While my other sister friends, who are middleaged like me, with children still in school, remind me of how lucky I am and how much they wish that they were in my shoes because this running around with kids in your 40s and 50s wears you out physically and emotionally. Yet here I am, with an empty Expedition and a half tank of gas, asking myself “Do you know where you’re going to?”

In “Mahogany,” Diana Ross’ Tracy is a passionate fashion designer looking for her big break. When she gets it, Billy Dee Williams tells Tracy that her career is meaningless without having love in your life. So, she drops her career to support Billy Dee Williams in his political aspirations. Now ask me how smack dab in the middle of the ’70s Women’s Lib Movement when this movie was made, and I would have to tell you that I do not have the foggiest idea. What I do know is that eventually Ross’ Tracy would have felt that same silence that I am feeling right now. Would Tracy have eventually returned to doing what she loved? Who knows. But before I became a mother 35 years ago, I aspired to be an author, a journalist, and a talk show host on public radio. Maybe this is my time. Maybe the question “Do you know where you’re going to?” is a philosophical one in scope. All those doors of parenting school-aged children and everything that goes along with it have closed. It’s time to look ahead. It’s time to open new doors. So maybe it’s time to trade in that Expedition for a nice two-door luxury sedan with warming seats for my bad back. Can I do this? I believe I can.