Friday, June 7, 2013
growing up/growing old
Today I picked up my Son from school for the very last time. It was the final day of 12th grade and because he inherited his sentimental side from both his parents he's awesome at tugging at my heart strings. Although I work 40 minutes from his school and I havent had to do this for years, he remembered how I always used to pick him up from school on the last day and we'd blast Alice Cooper's Schools Out. So the day before the "last day" he sheepishly said "so are you gonna pick me up so we can play schools out for the last time ever?" Score one for melting my heart.
So I took 2 hours off work and picked him up and we blasted the song and for one brief moment it was 2004 and we were driving away from his elementary school and he would never grow up. But it was shortlived and soon we were discussing college and his new job and I was old again.
I am blessed. I'll be the first to admit I have no idea what I am doing as a parent. My main course of action is "is my Son happy? Respectful? Knowledgeable? Social?" Its easy to think you've got it under control, but life gets in the way of being prepared and time flies by and all of a sudden you blink and your child is a grown up with grown up problems and grown up questions and you wonder "what the hell happened I was just picking him up from the last day of 5th grade!!"
I haven't had to think about growing old until now. I guess I buried the idea that he might not need me the way he used to so that I could focus on my importance to him, but now he is taking care of himself (to an extent) and I am forced to think about how I'm going to take care of MYself. One day picking him up from school turned into a lesson in self awareness.
So all you people with pre teens, toddlers, babies... enjoy it as much as possible. One day you're going to be congratulating them on graduating 12th grade and they'll be telling you about how they're going to be out all night celebrating with friends, and dont worry they'll make it to work ontime tomorrow and they'll text you to check in in a few days. And you'll smile and tell them ok, be careful, you love them. And then you'll notice how quiet it sounds and you'll wonder what you should do with the rest of your life.
So I took 2 hours off work and picked him up and we blasted the song and for one brief moment it was 2004 and we were driving away from his elementary school and he would never grow up. But it was shortlived and soon we were discussing college and his new job and I was old again.
I am blessed. I'll be the first to admit I have no idea what I am doing as a parent. My main course of action is "is my Son happy? Respectful? Knowledgeable? Social?" Its easy to think you've got it under control, but life gets in the way of being prepared and time flies by and all of a sudden you blink and your child is a grown up with grown up problems and grown up questions and you wonder "what the hell happened I was just picking him up from the last day of 5th grade!!"
I haven't had to think about growing old until now. I guess I buried the idea that he might not need me the way he used to so that I could focus on my importance to him, but now he is taking care of himself (to an extent) and I am forced to think about how I'm going to take care of MYself. One day picking him up from school turned into a lesson in self awareness.
So all you people with pre teens, toddlers, babies... enjoy it as much as possible. One day you're going to be congratulating them on graduating 12th grade and they'll be telling you about how they're going to be out all night celebrating with friends, and dont worry they'll make it to work ontime tomorrow and they'll text you to check in in a few days. And you'll smile and tell them ok, be careful, you love them. And then you'll notice how quiet it sounds and you'll wonder what you should do with the rest of your life.
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