I thought that it had been two weeks since I last blogged but see that it has been three. These last weeks have been an adjustment to a different sort of “normal” since bringing our son home from Wilderness.

The challenging part of the adjustment to having my son home is the desire I still have to guide him in the decisions that I think are best for him. One of those decisions is school. I still wanted him to finish this semester of high school…he would graduate this coming May as he did get school credit while he was away. His dad and I told him however that we would give him the choice whether to get his diploma or get his GED. He chose to get his GED. I want to say, “I changed my mind, you must go back to school!” Instead I have taken a deep breath and said to myself that there is more than one path through life and I must give him the freedom to take his own path…even if every fiber of my being wants to push him in the direction I think is right.

We are quickly approaching February. My daughter is working part time and finishing her last semester of high school, preparing to go to college. My son is working part time, preparing to move out with his GED. May will be here in four months. My time as a parent, guiding their lives is basically done now. In their varied schedules with jobs, we often lack one or both at the dinner table now. I look across the dinner table at my husband sometimes and I think, “This is how it is going to be”…our more than two decades of parenting is done. Sure, they will come back and visit but the dynamics will be different…they will be coming back as young adults.

Part of me feels the loss of the parenting role of guiding 5 kids over more than twenty years. Another part of me looks forward to trips that my husband and I can take together that we have only talked about until now. A third part of me can’t wait to not have to find dirty dishes in the sink that somehow the teenagers were unable to lift into the dishwasher. Still, I have a feeling that in a few months when the sink stays clear I will feel nostalgia that we have snipped the last parental strings with our kids. They will be flying solo and though I will miss them, I know I have to let them go.