I’m getting a late start this morning. It was a busy weekend. My youngest two children had their Homecoming dance Saturday evening. The next day, we headed over to our sons’ college town where we got to visit with our eldest two sons and their girlfriends.
I’ve been through the Homecoming “drill” many times now, although this was the first time with my daughter. Admittedly, it’s a lot harder to find the right dress than asking, “Do your slacks still fit?” to the boys. She liked her dress until she got to the dance and then she decided that it was all wrong. From what I gather, that is the normal expectation for girls and high school dances. In the end though, both the “brown-hairs” (our youngest two kids) seemed to have a good time and everything went off without a hitch.
The still new part comes in the next day. We are still getting used to this new “adult” relationship we now have the “reds” (our two eldest sons). There is no more “the parents dictating” times and places to meet. It all is much more a mutual decision now. Actually, our sons picked a fun Mexican restaurant with an outdoor patio and it was great. All four kids were talking about their stresses, their classes, and their visions for the future. My middle son is really struggling with his decision to go to medical school or not. Our eldest son was telling us discussions that he has with his boss and his coworkers and mentions that he’ll be spending the week in Philadelphia for work. I just sat in awe at times. When did this happen? Why does it feel like they went very slowly from energizer bunny boys to snarky, cocky teenagers to all of the sudden, at the flip of a switch, interesting mature adults with a lot of ideas and visions for the future? And concerns for their parents? My one son’s girlfriend asked me, “What will you guys do next?” I think that she meant after lunch, but I felt the need to reassure her that we would travel, and I was loving exploring my writing, and my husband is taking his biking to a whole new level. Wow. This is all so strange.
Right now I am sitting with a mixture of pride and relief, but also a feel of having strange empty hands and not quite sure what to do with them. My mature self knows better than to use those hands to hold on too tightly to young men who have so much to offer themselves and the world as they go on living their lives. I know that it’s not my place to make decisions for them anymore, but now to be more of the sounding board and comfort zone, a good supporting character, as they grapple with decisions that they must make on their own, for themselves. I think that maybe I’m supposed to take my hands and place them in prayer position in front of my heart and just be thankful. Maybe right now is the stage that I just enjoy them and our new relationship status as contemporaries. Mostly, I just need to let it be. Let it be.
