#senior.mom.problems…

If you know me…you had to know there was a post like this swimming around in my head somewhere. I mean, really….you knew it was coming. It’s mid-May and I have a high-school senior. How could it not be brewing?!? I think that I’m really glad that I didn’t have my blog when Mason graduated. He was my first and the emotions were heavy and raw. There’s no telling what that hot mess blog post would have read like. Now, that’s not to say I’m completely ready for it this time around. Or that the emotions will be any less heavy or any less raw. It just means I have first-hand, insider experience in what to expect this time around. Kind of like when you’re on the way to the hospital to have your first baby. You’re scared because you don’t know what to expect. Then, when you’re on your way to the hospital to have your second baby…you’re scared because you do know what to expect. Yeah…that’s kind of what this is like.

milestones

Like all parents, I’ve been anticipating and celebrating milestones from the moment I held each of my babies. Solid foods, walking and first words. Preschool, riding a bike and finishing elementary school. As they were getting ready to transition through each of these phases, I would often reminisce. In looking back, I was filled with an equal measure of tenderness and melancholy. While I watched my little ones reach each of these markers…I was saying a quiet goodbye to the little babies they once were. But…I was also cheering a not-so-quiet hurray. Breathing a sigh of relief to have made it through one stage of their childhood…and delighted to be moving into the next stage. Excitement at knowing I would have a front-row seat to watch them continue to blossom and grow.

So, why does this milestone resonate so differently with us? Why, so often, do we look at this time in a young person’s life and see it as an ending? As a final chapter filled only with all of their lasts? How come this feels more like match point of the fifth set in the title game than it does the downtime between pool play and bracket play? This week will be Ellie’s last week of high school. We’ve already watched her play her last volleyball game as a Rayder. This week will be the last time she’ll turn in assignments to the teachers that have helped shape her over the last 13 years. Sunday night will be the last time she attends a Rayder athletic banquet. Thursday…her last high school assembly. And her last sign-off for the daily announcements. Yes, there are a lot of lasts…but it’s not the end.

firsts not lasts

This time around, because I do know what to expect…I’m going to focus on all of the new and exciting firsts my girl is going to experience. Yes…the lasts will be hard. Yes…there will be tears hiding behind the smiles But, oh.. all of those firsts. In mid-August, she’ll meet her new teammates for the first time. She’ll take on her first workout in new facilities wearing new team colors. The first night in her new dorm. Doors propped open, new faces popping in and out, sharing junk-food, background stories and cell-phone numbers. Her first day of classes. New professors, new classmates and new goals. Her first NCAA volleyball match. First college victory. Her first weekend road trip “back home”. Yes…I had to throw that one in there. Down the road a bit, there will be other firsts. The first time she interns in her major. Her first apartment, first job interview, first job offer. These are the things I’m going to try to center on in the upcoming weeks. Her firsts…not her lasts.

My girl is SO ready for this. She is confident. She is smart. And she is strong. I’m also pretty certain she left half of her heart at the college when we toured there just over a year ago. She’s ready. Me? Well, I may not be quite as ready as she is. I’m slowly adjusting to the idea that I will no longer have that spectator seat right in the front row. That many of these firsts will happen and I won’t be there to see them. But, I know that this is exactly what we’ve been raising her to do. To go off and experience her own firsts. In her own way. In her own time. And, as I’ve done from the day I first held her in my arms…as she gets ready to pass through each of these stages…I will say a quiet goodbye to the little girl she was. And I’ll be cheering a not-so-quiet hurray for the amazing young woman she is becoming.