Going at the Speed of LIfe

Sometime last week, I got a text from my best friend.  She was taking down her Christmas decorations and realized that, with her son graduating this year and joining the military, this may be his last Christmas at home - at least for a while.  With this realization came many tears.  My son is 3 years younger than hers, so this is a situation I have never experienced.  But, being the good friend that I am (or try to be at least) I gave her the best advice I could come up with:

This is what you have been preparing for the past 18 years, although you probably never thought about it that way.  It's time to let your baby bird leave the nest, and see how well he can fly.  It will be a hard adjustment, probably weird at times, but you all WILL adjust.  And next thing you know, you'll be a proud military mama.

I really don't know how "wise" my advice was, but I hope it helped.   I also told her that she'll have to give my "wise" words back to me in 3 years when it's MY son's turn to graduate.  She'll have 3 years of experience by then, so maybe her advice will be better.  I also suggested, with a laugh, that she may be a grandma by then.  After all, he'll be 21 in three years, and both she and I  had our first child by our 21st birthdays.  I may have been joking around, but this thought brought my feet quite firmly back to the ground.  Yikes.  Are we really old enough for grandchildren to be an issue?  I certainly don't FEEL old enough. But, both of our sons are teenagers, so yes, yes we are.

Have you ever been on a long-distance drive, and suddenly realized that you don't remember the last 20 miles or so?  You think "How did i get here?" That's how I feel about life.  It's not that I don't remember the last 20 years, I just don't know how they got past me so fast.