Finding a new normal

We’re finding a new normal in our house. Actually it’s been happening for a few months.

We have an 18 year old living under our roof. A senior in high school. We’re preparing to send her off to college. The applications are done, she has heard from 3 of her 4 choices, and has a couple of scholarship offers. FAFSA is filed and more scholarship essays are underway. We are beginning to attend events or go through annual routines which are “lasts” for her. Spring events are beginning to fill our calendar and we are looking ahead at significant dates in August.

And so this is our new normal. Figuring out what it’s like to let go.

Yesterday we had a brief conversation about her curfew. She ever-so-tenderly lodged an ever-so-gentle complaint about it. We reminded her that her curfew is often about when we would like to go to bed. At least one of us is always up, or at least dozing on the sofa, until she is home. (Go ahead, judge us as overprotective parents… I don’t mind.) She reassured us that she could come home without us being awake. After all, at college she will be on her own, responsible for her own sleeping and waking and much, much more. And we know that.

So we are entering that phase of parenting where we let go and pray like crazy that all the advice, life-skills and wisdom we have poured into her have stuck somewhere in her heart and mind.

Letting go. This is our new normal.

Once we move our first-born into her dorm it will be time to begin the college search for Sam.

Like I said, letting go. It’s our new normal.