Congratulation Sadness

What an amazing time of our lives. Our sweet Oldest graduates in exactly 26 days. In less than a month he will be walking the walk of pride, accomplishment and satisfaction. In exactly 10 short days that same young man turns 18. I have been pondering which milestone hits us harder.

As he is our oldest child we get, or I should say he gets, to live all the emotions fresh. We, being me, are going to be a hot mess in less than a month. I will confess I am a particularly emotional person. I'm sane and all, but I do get attached to my TV shows. The characters bring me joy and sadness. I rejoice with them. I cry with them. And they are one dimensional. It doesn't stop there. I can evoke those tears faster than you can say "what happened?" A commercial or even a TV show preview has been known to get them rolling.

I say that as a proud basket case-crier. No shame in my game. I don't mind going there with my TV friends and so certainly, one can anticipate I am all in for these upcoming events in my real life. My baby boy is turning 18 and graduating high school. It's a joy and a success, but to be real with you, it's like adding insult to injury, as they say.

I won't tell you how his mind checked out of school somewhere around January. Or what a tough road school has been for him. You probably already know that he came to live with the Hub and I when he was 4. And from the instant I met him, when he was just 1 year old, I fell in love with him. God truly does work in mysterious ways. This child won my heart without saying a word.

I will tell you he is excited about being finished with school. He's excited about heading to college in August (go Potomac State!). I will also tell you he's my baby and I'm not ready to let him go. Life is going to be so different without him here. None of us are ready to face that. I have figured out that a lot of what we are saying goodbye to is more than just Oldest, himself. Sure, not having him here with his amazing sense of humor, charm and frustrating bullheadedness, that will be different. But beyond that, life will be different. We are actually saying goodbye to the bumping into classmates he's known since kindergarten, remarking how much they've grown. It's goodbye to prom and homecoming. It's goodbye to Friday night football games. It's goodbye to the community of high schoolers and high school parents we've grown to be a part of. When we become attached to something we are literally sewn together and it hurts when it comes apart.

Although there is a tremendous amount of pain in making this life adjustment, we know that this is a part of life. We have to let him grow up and spread his wings. We have to give him space. You hear me talking myself into this, right? Graduation time I have taken two days of from work. It's going to take every bit of that to get myself together. I'm so not ready for this. Despite my doubts I know that God will take me through it and believe me I will be praying hard that He helps me to at least stay composed as much as possible. Who wants to be a sniffling, rambling, snotting mess? It's inevitable, I know. But lest you see me somewhere around that time frame, you've been given fair warning, don't so much as blow on me or I might fall to pieces. God is good friends, all the time and all the time God is good. His mercy carries us through gracefully.