The first time they rode in a real bike lane—not the sidewalk or a wading pool, not an empty parking lot or a school playground—I saw my daughters’ lives flash before my eyes.

But not precisely the way you think. I promise.

It was this spring, the first genuinely hot May morning, when we woke up and prepared to go to our school’s Bike Rodeo. What is a bike rodeo, you ask? I had no idea, but we were promised games and stickers and an actual professional who would help make my firstborn’s helmet fit properly, so we were all in. We like biking, and anything that promised a bunch of friends and bikes sounded like a good time. Fifteen minutes before the event, we took ourselves out to the garage to collect two kid bikes and put them in the car for the ten-minute drive to school. Only to discover, quite quickly, that the 20″ tires of my growing eight-year-old’s bike, in combination with the reality that kids sit in the back in carseats for basically their whole childhood now, would make transporting both bikes in the car impossible. Unless I left the kids and their carseats at home, that is, which would be ridiculous, not to mention illegal. So, we were stuck.

Faced with this reality, I turned to the kids, and said, “Well, either we skip it, or go without bikes, or… I guess we could bike to the Bike Rodeo?” That last option I basically muttered, unable to conjure much enthusiasm for the plan. Because even though the three of us routinely leave here on a cargo bike together, it means that one of us—always me—must either thread the needle of a level bike lane along an arterial, or first plunge down one of the three side streets that descend from our corner towards the lake at the base of the hill. Caught between steep hills and busy streets, my kids don’t really ride much on their own. So naturally, this is what they had to do today.

Mistress of compromise, I told them they could ride on their own once we got to the bottom of the hill, so we navigated ourselves slowly down the steep grade towards the water, where I knew a well-protected bike lane would take us most of the way to school.

Once there, I was faced with a question I hadn’t pondered for a while, one of sequence. In another life, as a mountaineering guide, I used to arrange rope teams to cross glaciers, carefully staggering those who needed more support between those who required a bit less. Leaders would be at the front and back, hemming students in with confidence. That would be ideal today, also, but I didn’t have two leaders. I only had me. Should I lead from the front, by example, having to constantly crane my neck to make sure they were keeping up and following the rules? Or from behind, letting one of them forge her own way as the leader, and trusting that she’d pay attention to every circumstance that warranted it?

I chose the latter, and gave the girls a sports-style pep talk before our half-mile ride. Watch out for stop signs, for the green stripes on the lane, which mean that cars might be crossing. Imagine you’re invisible to cars, and stay far away from them. If someone wants to pass you, don’t freak out. Just ride straight. Be calm. You know what you’re doing—just keep paying attention. Got it?

Turns out, they have got it.

My firstborn, Luci, leads us, taking the unfolding path with caution and attention. She reads the signs, road and others, and is appropriately wary of, well, everything. Still, her wheel is straight, her legs moving with surety and grace as she hugs the curve of the lake that takes us most of the way to the school.

Her little sister, Ellie, follows closely behind, wheel wobbling more, less absorbed with the rules of the road than the mechanics of staying properly on it. Still, she has the mental space to shout, every so often, “Good job, Lu!” to her sister up ahead, a tiny cheerleader a few bike-lengths back.

And I’m in the back, pedaling as slowly as I possibly can so as not to overtake them, staying close enough to relay directions to them both.

I can hear Luci’s questions, Ellie’s encouragements, and it’s here that I see that this is how it will be for them, for us, for a while now. It’s here that the next bit of their lives seem to unfurl in front of me like a shimmering ribbon falling off of its spool. That their life, sort of, flashes in front of me.

Luci will go first, her eyes wide open to her surroundings, cautious and curious and awake. And Ellie will go second, cheering her sister on and likely looking for a new way to do it, a risk that Luci avoided that she might be able to manage. And me, I’ll be in the back, still speaking loudly enough for them to hear, and praying and hoping and trusting that I’ve taught them to find their way forward.

Because we used to go together, didn’t we? All those years that I carried them, or pushed them in strollers, or held their hands, we went where I said we’d go. And now, well, now they are going places I don’t always go.

It’s been just over a week since my youngest started Kindergarten, since we dropped them both off, miraculously at the same wonderful school that Luci has attended for three years, and now we spend some time apart, each day. They come home and tell me what they’re learning, and it’s a bittersweet, ridiculous surprise to me, still, when their discoveries aren’t ones that we made together.

And yet, at the end of the day we’re in the backyard, eating cookies and watching the shadows fall with September promptness over the green-again grass. We hear stories from the day, about how one child did her first-ever Google search in order to color in a flag correctly, while another tried to buy pizza in the cafeteria with play money from P.E. class.

I’m glad, once again, that we’re still in the same bike line, these girls and I. Even if they’re the ones pedaling, I’m glad that for now, we’re still riding together.