I suspect the entirety of June will be dedicated to our youngest child’s graduation from high school. Please be patient as I try on the various stages of…well, I don’t really know what I’m feeling.
Do you ever have one of those reactions that, when compared to those around you, seems a little very much not the same?
By the time you read this, our nest will be emptied.
Okay, not officially empty but, as of just two days ago, our youngest child will have graduated (thank goodness he passed that math final!) from high school and we will begin checking off the days until we start the college drop-offs. That’s “drop-offs” plural as our eldest heads into their senior year of college just as our youngest enters his first year. No surprise that those chosen colleges sit in the complete opposite direction which will wreak havoc on our schedule each time a pick-up or drop-off season begins.
As we approached last Saturday’s graduation, our calendar was filled with celebratory parties. I have had much time to examine the moms around me–those moms so essential to my circle for the last decade. Throughout the last six months, each time we gathered, I noticed hints of sadness appearing on their beautiful faces. Each time, a little more sadness. I’ve studied their social media posts–tributes to their graduates that included a healthy mix of both pride and longing. Together we have talked about how surreal this moment is as we mark the of a long journey that has always included having at least one child in our local schools.
Most often heard? “I just can’t believe we have reached the end!”
Why am I not more…what? Is it wistful? Is that what these other moms are feeling?
Why am I not more wistful?
Is it because I came into the parenting gig seven years into the parenting gig?
Is it because I was thrust onto this parenting battleground with no preparation?
Is it because I still have the scars of learning on the fly?
Is it because I struggled for so long trying to figure out why I’d chosen the deep end of the crazy pool for entry?
Is it because I missed a hefty chunk of those formative lower-grade-school years as I unknowingly wrapped up life as a single gal four hours south of room parents or copy machines or field trip chaperones?
Or is it all more simple? Perhaps my lack of wistfulness is because the final steps to this finish line has felt more like a desperate crawl.
My husband tells me that the difficulties faced over the last school year are completely normal.
“This is a time,” he says, “when boys rebel against their mothers.”
Yes, table for one. There has been this fog in our home for the last nine months that has traveled from room to room attached to our youngest child. Eye rolls? An expert. Snark? Sure. Senioritis? He tagged out three years ago (is sophomoritis a thing?). It’s as if, in addition to a driver’s license that allowed him to stay out after midnight, turning 18 also gifted him levels of intelligence, logic, and decision-making skills that were to be the envy of everyone no one around him.
Perhaps the quest to feel less dumb compared to my youngest erased that the birth of any feelings of wist, full or otherwise. And while I’m thrilled to have avoided the screaming teen that lives in many homes at this age, the teen mastering the silent stare brings its own challenges.
My husband spent the day yesterday with a shocked stare as he repeated over and over, “I can’t believe we have no kids in school anymore,” or “I’ve had a kid in school for twenty-two years.” Don’t read the next bit as criticism as my husband is an absolutely amazing father…but perhaps my roles as Grade Monitor, Homework Heavy, Lunch Money Clerk, and Signer of All the Forms have given my brain more memories of administration than of pleasantries.
I am incredibly proud of my children. I am endlessly grateful to have had my husband by my side. I cannot believe that the same person (me) who tripped into the school district twelve years ago by nearly spoiling Santa’s existence to a library full of second grades is also the same person (me) who was stopped a dozen times for hugs and well-wishes while aiming for my commencement perch.
Still.
Those memories of the struggle to keep my head above water are so not far into the past and though that struggle did turn into a stride, there are soft scars.
Four years ago, our eldest had a modified, social-distancing graduation that read “We know you all need something and this is the best we can do.” Now, our first “real” graduation is complete. In just eleven months, our eldest will finally hit that graduation stage (for real!) at the university level. Three years after that, and I know it will fly by, our youngest will graduate again as he wraps up round one of higher learning.
I have no doubt that, sometime this summer, that jacket of School Mom will slip off my shoulders when I am least expecting it. Post-graduation, we went straight into graduation party prep. Post party? Packing mode with one child heading to Greece for a month and the other off to California. Will it be in the silence that follows their departures this week that those real feelings will begin their bubbled trek to the surface?
Who will I be then?
And will she be wistful?
One thought on “Wistful. Why Am I Not More Wistful?”