Early Morning Musings

I've been occasionally aware, these past few weeks, of that peculiar feeling of the days slipping by without my really being fully part of them. It comes partly from being pulled in so many different directions—of being truly concerned about and involved in so many emotionally heavy and time-consuming areas: church, my parents, friends, our support group, our AHG troop, the classes I teach. And, of course, my family.

Everything these past several months has been focused on our oldest: college, job, Eagle Scout, graduation. Tomorrow Randy's family comes in for Jesse's graduation, and the graduation blitz begins: rehearsal, pictures, graduation itself, then the graduation party. Cleaning, ironing, cooking meals, baking, gathering items for his display table—these are all things I have to do.

But beyond the doing, beyond the sitting in the living room chatting with people, beyond the practicalities of finding the tassel and figuring out how to pin on the cap, beyond all that doing is the elephant in the room: my child is graduating.

It hits me at times like last night, when Randy, Duncan, Laurel and I played frisbee in the backyard. It hits me on evenings when Jesse is at work and just the four of us are eating dinner together, with Duncan moving into Jesse's spot at the table. After this summer, it will just be the four of us, all the time. Our family dynamic is changing, and even though it has been evolving over the past year, especially since Jesse has been working, the fact still hangs over me.

Yes, I'm happy that he's graduating. Yes, I'm thrilled that he's going to college. But once upon a time, he was a little blond boy in yellow rain boots on a bright red tractor. And that's why I have to keep busy.

Linked to Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky