Feeling Melancholy...

My oldest baby of 19 years is going away. We have been preparing for this for over a year. As the date of his departure - just 12 days before my 42nd birthday - approaches I find myself in a mix of emotions. Melancholy seems to be the one that is biting me in the behind most. I'm also excited for him to get started on his own adventures. I'm anxious about things I might have forgotten to tell him. Well, I did say a mix.

We are having a send off party on the 4th of July. On one hand that seems like an unlikely date to have anything other than the normal independence day celebration, but consider that we are sending him to the United States Military Academy Prep School where they will get him well prepared for West Point. After a year at the academy, then another 4 at West Point he will have a 5 year commitment in the Army. Can you think of a better day to celebrate that kind of a start in ones young life?

I am a homeschooling mom. I have doubted every move I have made since he entered 2nd grade and I took him out of the public school system. I have switched methods and curriculum more often than I can count, then switched back to some. Every year I was faced with the question of "am I doing enough". Now, I can say we did not do everything right, but we must not have done everything wrong either. I have 4 other children that I homeschool and I am a little more confident with them, but we are doing things different with them as well. Hopefully better.

In my hours of wondering and worry I have also questioned if I could be a more confident mom and teacher? Do all moms and teachers have as many doubts? Would it make things better if I were? Still, all in all I am very proud of the son we have raised. I can't wait to see what he decides, as he grows into his own life and family, what he will keep of the ways we have raised him and what he will decide to try differently. I look forward to hearing about all of his new experiences, and what he finds to interest him once he is out of the nest.

But the one thing that I think about most, the one thing I wish for him more than anything else is that he keeps his relationship with God alive, that he continues to grow his faith, and that he looks to his faith when he has questions on the rights and wrongs of the path ahead of him.

To that end I say "Father help him, be with him, and watch over him. And God help me not to be a blithering, blubbering mess from here to the day he leaves." :)

God bless!