Graduation and on

Well, graduation is over.  I gotta say that Jiffy Lube is definately the place to hold the graduation.  I admit to being a skeptic but the pavillion part of "the lube" holds 10,000 people and it was about 3/4 full.  Imagine the angry letters and emails from parents if the schools would have been forced to conduct that affair in the gymnasium!  The only rough spot was the staff at The Lube.  How a place like that can be completely thrown for a loop by a single woman in a wheelchair is beyond me.  It was as though they had never had to handle how to get handicapped people in and out of the venue.  

Sarah and I are very proud of Erin.  She pursued what we felt was a reasonable school-life balance over the past 4 years.  This is what Sarah and I had hoped would happen: working hard on her studies while having a life is an important part of a kids development in High School.  The time for her to live more like a monk and focus like a laser on her education will soon be upon her.  Especialy if she wants to pursue a career in medicine.  That decision is up to her.

The time between graduation from High School and departure for college condenses and alters the relationship between parent and child.  The kid is interested in beginning to live their own life and is pushing.  They are trying this whole "adult" thing on for size.  The parent generally views this as cute but annoying.  Everone is looking in the opposite end of the telescope.  For instance:

Child: I'm graduated now and am preparing for college and the real world.  I need a summer to rest.

Parent:  That's very nice.  You want to prepare for the real world?  Get a job.

For my part, I deal with this new found sass by taking the long view.  I'm pretty sure that I've done my job over the past 18 years.  I try to keep in mind that my new role is "funding source without control" and just live with it.  I know that our relationship is changing and both of us are at least somewhat uncomfortable with it.  There's a lot of "trying things on for size" that pushes borders back and forth.  I think it is important to remember that it is a growning and learning experience for everyone…….although sometimes that experience ends with "just shutup and do it."  In chatting with faimly friends it is amazing to me how ubiquitous this experience is.  Every single kid seems to be going through this.  Private Facebook chats with friends usually start with, "will you come take my kid?"

For Sarah and I it is a relatively acute condition.  We wanted a bunch of kids but only ever ended up with one so we're empty nesters come this fall.  We are already re-building that network of friends that sometimes frays as children and family obligations come into the picture.  We go out with friends.  We are beginning to do our own thing again.  The kid complains that we have a better social life than she does!  Hey man, while everything still works I want to enjoy things.

I expect that at some point in the near future we'll all figure out that a small but important piece of our relationship has changed but at the macro level everything is the same.  I'm sure things will settle down, it'll just take awhile.