I know my mom is getting older. Seeing it is different from knowing it.

The author has lived abroad half her life.

Courtesy of the author I've lived about half of my adult life either overseas or traveling.

It's been more than 13 years since we've lived on the same continent.

My perspective on our relationship and the one with my own daughter is shifting in real time.

Time is a funny thing, mostly because it's a construct, but it has a way of forcing people to see things differently, even when they might not want to.

I hadn't spent long stretches of time with my mom until her recent visit.

After she left, I began to reflect on how the years — and distance — have changed us both.

The picture I have of her has stayed mostly the same over the years, but this visit shifted something: I'm now more aware of her aging , and of my own.

I'm seeing her for who she is It's hard to see your parents one way as a child and then realize, as an adult, that that impression of them was based solely on a child's perspective and only knowing them relationally as a parent, not fully knowing them as an adult from an adult's perspective.

The relationship I had with her as a child and teen may be long gone, and the relationship I have with her now has evolved beyond anything my youthful perspective could have imagined.

During this most recent visit, I feel like I'm finally seeing the truest version of her from a healed, adult perspective.

She's human.

I'm human.

We all just have to figure out how we relate to one another and engage in one another's lives.