In three days we will deposit our only child in the cradle of academia: his Freshman year of college. I have spent the last 72 hours doing laundry and swear I unearthed the field day shirt from 5th grade. There are fossils of socks, snippets of movie ticket stubs, a dog collar and one Heelie which is a story in itself.  Oh, the Heavenly debris of a full life lived under my roof.

The Spring  before we lost Maggie Lee, one of her assignments was to interview someone actually in their desired future profession. Since she wanted to be an actress I reached out to my Bellaire High School Drama friend, Ray Ford. I went to college auditions with Ray in 1988; he received a full ride to Boston University while I received coupons for Junior College Theater Seminars. There were literal crickets in my mailbox. But in my defense, I was cleverly mediocre.

Ray’s advice to any aspiring actor was this: get your college degree, get your Master’s and decide what you want to say to the world. Decide what you wanted to SAY? Wha? I found his wisdom strange at the time because I thought actors were people who wore wigs and repeated other people’s lines for a living. This could perhaps shed light on Ray’s success. And my crickets.

As my Facebook feed is populated with tears, rants, death and pestilence (and also some challenging posts from those NOT dropping kids off at college) I wondered what in the world I could add? What original anything in the cacophony of an unstable society, chaos  and people in life transition like me who are leaving their little people in a great big World? Believe me, the 48 pair of boxers and 62 pair of socks reveal the catastrophic height of my anxiety and I have no idea what to expect.

I just have to believe this: we got this. We are incredibly blessed to have children who have the grades to go to college and for us to have the means to afford it. Life is never as we want or expect: I am getting shot down at literally every turn when I suggest something as insane as a dry erase board or an aluminum bin for his desk crap. He won’t even agree to a burlap cover for the voluminous, ugly bulletin board above his fold out bed. I am NOT trying to be the JoAnna Gains of Texas Tech Murdough Hall, I just truly want visitors to his room NOT to think he was raised by feral wolves. Is that so wrong?

Moms, Dads, errebody, we’ve got this because we don’t have this at all. The final false sense of control like bulk coffee beans falling through sweaty, clutching fingers since Kindergarten has all but slipped through our hands and we are slow to come to grips with it. With the gift of parental anxiety we feel like if we cannot actually impact the outcome then we can at least get a stomach ulcer over it. The jig is up. We never truly had control over our child’s circumstances at all.

I am certain that I will cry on move-in day. I know that I will truly miss my child and not just his energy but his humor and kindness. He is my Opus and gift to the world. My nose tingles and my eyes blur as I type this because I am so proud of the Godly man he is. But I know that when the garage sale is over and the banner’s wrapped up that we will live to tell about this. His leaving means that God has blessed him with fearlessness which makes no sense. He is striking out to West Texas to meet his future and I am incredibly proud.

“You teach kids to be independent and then are sad when they become that,” a wise man once said. As long as there is breath in our lungs, God has another chapter to write. With adjustment, in time, I know you will pick up the pen.

#parenting

#collegefreshmandropoff

#kidsgrowingup

#Motherhood

#Faith