The First of the Last

Today marked a historic day for me:  It was my Son's first day of his senior year of high school.  His last first day of school.  Just about every parent has pictures of their child on their 1st first day of school… the new outfit, crisp school supplies, the little backpack, and snaggletooth grin as your baby took his or her first steps towards being a big kid heading off to real school.  As you go through the years you find yourself saying "Ugh!  I can't wait until he graduates!"  That is, until it is actually staring you in the face.  As my son went through high school, I knew that I would have to face this day and I thought I had mentally prepared myself for it.  Well, I guess I didn't plan well enough.  As I left the house this morning, my beau asked if I was ok and I assured him that yes, I was fine.  I drove up to Son's high school to see the traditional TPing of the school by the seniors, which Son had participated in (wearing a full Tarzan costume) the night before.  Winding up the drive between trees covered in miles of toilet paper, I thought about the first day I dropped my son off at that high school, with the same trees covered in TP from that year's seniors.  I was still ok, but I knew that my calm façade was hiding the emotion beneath the surface, and it was just a matter of time before it sprang forth.  Unfortunately, it didn't wait until I got home and I have been one weepy employee all day.

I know that all parents get emotional at the thought of their child, especially their first child, reaching the official end of their childhood, getting ready to go off into the world as a (legal) adult, the "emptying of the nest" so to speak.  But for me, it goes much deeper.  When I was at my son's age, he was already a year and a half old. This day seemed light years and infinite impossibilities away. I myself still had to go to college, go to grad school, make life mistakes, grow and develop while simultaneously getting that baby boy to the point he is at now—an honor student and star football player at one of the best private high schools in the state.  I cannot even put the struggle into words, and indeed I don't.  Whenever someone asks me "How in the hell did you graduate from high school with honors, graduate from undergrad with honors, graduate from law school with honors, and become a lawyer, all while raising young children?" my answer is always "I don't know… I just did it."  My tears are not just tears of sadness; they are tears of relief, triumph, joy, exhaustion, and pride both in my son and in me—a full glass case of emotion.  Yes, all parents have their struggles, but you have to admit….. I pulled off an impossible—or at the least, highly statistically improbable—feat.  Most people have trouble with either being an honor student or raising an honor student exclusively.  I did BOTH. Simultaneously.  And for that, I think I deserve a few moments of emotion and reflection.

And celebration, dammit!  Yes, we still have the school year ahead and much work to do, getting him through all his honors classes, getting him into college (and a good financial aid package, because momma is still Sallie Mae's indentured servant herself), and hopefully through another championship football season.  But I think for right now, after work I am going to set the sadness aside and celebrate this small, yet monumental, milestone victory.  A Bazbeaux veggie pizza with extra goat cheese and a bottle of red wine to celebrate embarking on the final chapter of the first volume of my Son's life, and I shall toast to victories won and those yet to be accomplished.