Time flies too fast
Summer vacation is coming to a close, as it always seems to do too fast. New clothes have been purchased, new shoes have been brought home, and binders, folders and pencils galore are gracing my dining room table.
It is time for the kids to go back to school.
This year is a little different, however. There is a lot of change happening in my house. I’ve got one heading to middle school, one heading to high school and one who moved to college last week. That is a lot of transition. And I don’t do change well.
Don’t get me wrong; I like a challenge as much as the next guy. I like for my mind to be stretched, or my ability to be tested on occasion. I just like it to be at a time of my choosing, and I like to be able to stop it before it goes too far. Yes, I know that severely limits the stretch. I’m a quandary like that.
I’m going to confide that this whole “leaving the elementary school” thing has thrown me for a bit of a loop. And the whole “freshman in high school” thing is a bit of a struggle, too. But the whole “left my kid out of state and all by herself” thing is kind of killing me.
I don’t care if she’s only an hour away. I don’t care if we can talk, text and video chat on the day to day. I don’t care if I can get to every home game of the season. It’s just not the same.
My sister and I followed my child to her campus last week so that she could report for soccer camp. We made trip after trip up the steps to her room with stuff. We decorated her walls and unpacked her bags. We bought her some groceries.
And then we left her there. Alone (but not alone.)
I know her days are full. She’s quite busy with training, and I hear that she’s making new friends. She checks in a few times a day via text and has called once.
But I can no longer go into her room to check on her when I get up in the middle of the night, because she isn’t there. I can no longer wake her every morning for school, because I have to let her swim on her own. I can’t even make sure she’s eating healthy, because she’s gone.
My husband says it’s hardly fair. He says we spend 18 years teaching them how to live, watching them grow and helping them learn to complete tasks with skill, precision and efficiency, and then immediately they leave.
I do know we’ve prepared her as best we know how. I know that she is strong, resilient, determined and hard-working. I am even excited for her to have the experiences that college, sports, travel and more adult friendships will bring to her. I’m just a little sad at the same time.
The struggle will be trying not to smother the other two. I am only too aware that, as fast as this all went for the oldest one, starting middle and high school means I’ll be doing this again too soon.
I just wish there was a way to slow it all down.
Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.