Goodbye 2024

My son Brayden, who turns 18 in a month, is walking out the door tonight to head to a New Year's Eve party with his buddies. He'll spend tomorrow skiing in Flagstaff. He is in this perfectly beautiful part of life where it's fun, there is little to no responsibility and there is freedom and laughter all the time. As a senior in high school, he's recently been finishing up his college applications and senioritis has officially set in. He's on the cusp of "adulthood" —gearing up to leave this nest in just a few more months. I say this too much, but it was just yesterday it seemed when I found out I was pregnant with him. All those months preparing for him, anticipating having him in my arms was seemingly the slowest time has ever gone for me. Now I've blinked and I am facing what will be the quickest, shortest amount of time in my life before he graduates and heads out into the world.

It's amazing yet cruel how portions of life can whiz by in such a blur. How one fantastic moment was just here —like that moment he entered the world, the afternoon I first heard him cry, and his daddy said, "Oh my God, it's a boy!" Yet in that same instant, that boy is now a ginormous man driving his car around town, to school, to games or to the gym to put more muscles on a 6'2 frame that somehow came out of me, only just yesterday. 

How did we get here, this far, already? Just a moment ago I was here, where he is. This year, 2024, marked 30 years since I graduated high school. The same high school that my mom and dad graduated from 30 years before me. I'm sure they thought it all went fast too. I try and remember what it was like to be 18. Loud mouthed, silly, flaky, honest yet somewhat innocent still. I loved to write and socialize and was terrible at math. I was too trusting and a terrible judge of character. I was a kid who didn't know how much scary crap was out in the world. I tried to be so confident and brave in 1994 despite being uneasy and unsure of everything. Hmm. I'm still a good actor at that still. While I didn't know my late husband Matthew in high school, people told me over the years how smart, kind and fun he was. He graduated in the top of his class. An amazing swimmer. A brilliant, humble guy with a killer smile and zero enemies. How I managed to find him is still such a mystery. But I'm so glad I did and that my kids got half of him to carry on in this world. 

There is no mystery when it comes to knowing how proud Matthew would have been of Brayden. And of all his kids. I need to remember that, especially on days when they are driving me nuts. As we close out 2024, another year I have to do this solo parenting thing, I find myself thinking about what advice I'm supposed to give my kids. What should I be telling them? Where and how should I be guiding them? I don't know much (all my kids could school me in just about any mathematical equation and judging from Brayden's college essays, I'm pretty sure he might write a book before I ever try to). But I often wonder what Matthew would tell his son right now, what advice he'd give him, what things he needs to know right now, about the world he's about to step foot in alone. Would he tell him to travel first? Would he tell him to stay close to home or go far away? Would he tell him to steer clear of any major that would lead him to getting stuck working at a soul-sucking, fluorescent lit cubicle job every day? Would he tell him to TAKE in a heartbeat those full tuition academic scholarships offered to him at both Arizona State and University of Arizona to help his mom from going broke? I don't know, lol (although I think yes he'd tell him that it's ok he scrapped that application to the University of Michigan). 

Despite 30 years passing since I was in that cap and gown and experiencing so much life in-between, I don't have any grand words for him. For any of them. I only know to say keep trying hard. Keep laughing, having fun and loving. Keep being your best even when things are scary or when you are unsure. Know that it all goes by so fast. Enjoy this life now. And it really is beautiful.