Tomorrow is the day. "MD-Day" -- Move to Dorm Day. And then Sunday is "D-DAY" -- "Dorm Day". The difference is that Aidan will move in tomorrow afternoon, but come back home with us and spend the night and most of the day Sunday, then he will head off to stay on Sunday evening.
I have meant to write so much more as these days approached, but I've had a number of health things come up, and then it's just been darned hard to even think about anything to do with Aidan without tearing up and becoming all weepy.
I'm trying to comfort myself with the lovely, exquisite knowledge that UT is only 45 minutes from home, that he can come home any time he wants to, that at least for awhile he'll be home most weekends (unless he comes up with some kind of extracurricular interest that meets on Saturdays, in which case there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth on my part). I know we are truly blessed in that sense, that there are so many parents whose kids are going off to different towns, different states to college. I am SO grateful we're not heading to Chicago! If we were, I think at this stage I would be looking for an apartment there, because that is just too darned freaking far away.
But I like having Aidan HOME. I like that his room is just a few steps down the hall from ours. I like waking up in the middle of the night and knowing he is safely tucked in his bed just those few steps away. I like coming in from shopping and having him ensconced in "his" armchair in the living room, laptop on his knees, bopping away to some Japanese pop song in his earbuds. I like hearing, "Mom, when is supper?" and "I'm ready for bed now," (the latter to let us know it's time to go up and pray with him before he goes to sleep). I like hearing his laughter erupt into a quiet room as some webcomic tickles his funnybone, and I love it when he wants to share that comic with me.
I love when he wants to show me his favorite anime series, when he wants me to connect with something that is important to him.
I love the way his smile lights up the room, how just hearing his voice can chase away the demons of depression that sometimes swirl around me, especially when I'm feeling physically unwell.
But it's time to let go. It's time to lengthen the silver cord that connects my heart with his and let him go out into the world as he is supposed to do. It's time to let him begin to fulfill whatever plan it is God has for him. Going to UT is the first step in that plan, and I will not stand in God's way no matter how much I want to throw my arms around Aidan and hold onto him with all my might, keeping him here with me.
God has blessed us with an amazing young man, a young man who loves Him, who cares about pleasing Him, a young man who has so much promise and potential and so, so much to give to the world. We have brought him to this point with God's grace and His wisdom, and now it's time to launch him out into the waters of life, into the great plan God has for him, and trust that God will keep him safe and honor all that we've poured into him.
Will I cry? You betcha I will! I already have, copious amounts, and there will be copious more to come. But it's time. My heart and my soul and my head tell me so. And so I must let him go.
Come Monday morning I may actually breathe a sigh of relief -- not because I'm glad Aidan's gone (Lord knows that would never be true!), or because he's off doing what he's supposed to be doing. But this has been a L-O-N-G couple of years since he became a junior in high school and it hit me in the face that he would be leaving home soon. A long couple of years spent dreading the day he would move into his dorm at whatever university he ended up being led to. I've cried a lot of "anticipating" tears in these last two years, and I've stubbornly dug my heels in against the rush of time as the day grew nearer and nearer, trying to slow things down, to appreciate every moment while all three of us living in this house was still the normal way of things. For the last two years I wouldn't let myself say, "I can't wait for summer (or winter, or whatever) to be over," because when summer or whatever was over, D-day would be that much closer. Come Monday I can finally say, "I can't wait for Autumn!" without stopping myself and saying, "Wait, no, then THAT DAY will be closer!"
It's a small consolation, but I'll take it.
And, anyway, Jesus has been very gracious to me with His grace, and I know that He will continue to grant me exactly the grace I need to get through each and every day as an Empty Nester. I have a window decal on my car now that has a little UT longhorn on it and the words "Texas Parents," (as we are official members of the Texas Parents Organization.) It makes me feel proud to know that we're the parents of an amazing and wonderful college guy, a Texas Longhorn. We've outgrown high school and we've moved on.
I hope any of this post made any sense. It's hard to write from a heart that's overflowing with all kinds of emotions and have it come out the least bit intelligible.
I'll write again after D-Day and let you know how it went ...
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