To sit here now and think that this young man that is ready to leave once needed me for those things makes me shake my head in disbelief. I probably did more than was needed for him and know that I continue to do more than he needs. We raise these children to be independent, to make huge decisions, to be kind, have patience and enjoy themselves in these beginning years of their life. Some friends we met all those years ago are not in our day to day life but we remain in touch and can easily reach out to each other and share the same story as they helped build those memories. We continue to add new faces to our circle of friends and with that connections continue to grow and develop for more than just him.
As I worried about equipping him with all the skills he needed to be the person he is today we have to continue to work on ourselves, sometimes losing sight of that, and then adding more people to the family to care for and ensure their path was laid before them. Then allowing them to forge new paths, ones you didn't ever imagine they would go down, and then there are the paths that you knew they would remain on but you didn't think it would be that difficult. All while again trying to keep regular life floating along.
Parenting is hard, harder than I ever thought or knew looking back on my childhood. I remember having back to back games and my uniform would be folded and ready the next morning and I never thought twice about that. I now know that the late return home from a game turns into late night of prep for the next day and early rising to finish off the other items that weren't able to complete the night before. The craziest part is, this is mostly done on autopilot. There are things that have to be done and as parents we just do them or work with our kids to establish the rules of responsibility, who does what when, all while preparing them for the day when we don't make the lists for them anymore. They hopefully have picked up on the many tips and tricks of life and make some sense of them for themselves in their own lives.
So here we go, wrapping up our first child's high school career, and he moves out of state and onto new adventures without his family in this home. HE gets to prepare himself for all the things, he gets to initiate these new conversations with new faces, and he gets to build his circle of trust. I am equally sad and excited. With COVID being around during his sophomore and junior year, we were all together A LOT. This final year he has become beyond independent and some days I get five minutes and probably five words. The days that he chooses to stay home for movie and pizza night and he snuggles with his younger brother or teases a sister or sits next to me on the couch to share a blanket without me asking, I would like those to last forever. But they won't, he is off to do great things and I get to become the spectator-from a TRUE distance. The reality is I have been able to watch this small boy become a young man that I now truly enjoy being with and his amazing personality that is silly and fun beyond all get out, and his strength is more than just physical, and his dedication to those that matter most to him is felt a hundred times over, even more than his hugs.
August will be a tough month for me...but I know that hard is possible and it is always worth it. I know I am not losing anything in reality I am gaining so much. But I do feel like there will be a little bit of quiet and emptiness for those first few weeks until we can all adjust to a house that is just missing something...and we can all put our finger on it.
