One Flew Out Of The Cuckoo's Nest

Life in the Clubhouse changed considerably yesterday.

We moved our oldest son to college.

I knew this day was coming. I knew it was looming. We talked about it. We planned for it. We even went shopping for it. What I didn't expect was that it was going to come so stinking fast!

You tell yourself your child leaving home is inevitable. You tell yourself it's a part of life, that kids are not meant to live with Mom and Dad forever (under most circumstances anyway), and of course it's a new beginning for you as well as for them. What seems to be missing from the equation is the part where you cry until your eyes are swollen shut and snot is hanging in strings from your nose.

You can pretty much guess how I spent the better half of the day, can't you?

I told myself all of the aforementioned. I told myself this was his chance to strike out and try his newly earned wings. I told myself the last thing in the world I wanted for him was to find himself earning less than minimum wage in a job he's miserable at. I told myself he had too many God-given gifts for them to be wasted here. I told myself all of this. What I didn't tell myself was I was about to feel my heart being ripped from my chest.

Jordan, my first born, took 36 hard and difficult hours to get here. He was my Simba, my Munchie, my source of zingers and one liners that stunned and amused us beyond description. My dinosaur lover, he could tell you which dinosaur lived during which time period, something that at the age of 44 I still can't do. My train connoisseur, he spouted off details of different types of locomotives and what jobs they would perform. "Green Eggs And Ham" was the first book he read to me at the tender age of 4. Little Bear, Doug, Arthur, Thomas the Tank Engine, Blue's Clues, The Puzzle Place were among the shows we would laugh and learn with. 

This same little boy morphed almost over night into a young man whose interests broadened to include computers, Sonic The Hedgehog, big cats, and prehistoric creatures. At an age when he should have been a typical teenager he took on the role of brother/father to his younger siblings, growing fiercely protective of his mother who was going through her own circles of hell and stupidity. School issues, bullying issues, personal issues....oh yeah, we went through!

I watched as he was getting his things situated in his dorm room, this 6', husky young man with  stubble on his chin and shadows of that little boy woven into his features. My heart ached. The tears came. And I didn't care who saw!

My baby is no longer a baby.

My little boy is now a man. 

I remember my own mother telling me that your job as a parent doesn't end when the kids are grown; it merely goes through different phases, as though you're meeting that child for the first time all over again. I never understood what she meant.

Now I do!