This past Saturday was a long one. Roger and I were up at 5am so that we could join his high school steel drum band at a festival for the day. The festival was pretty awesome and I'll share a link to the mass band performance at the end of this post, but that isn't what I want to talk about...I'm going to sit here and I'm just going to write about being a mom.
For the longest time, mom has been my primary title. It's been my world and my life. Those two boys have been my world and my life. It's only been in the past little while that I've started thinking about what I'm going to do when they're gone and living their own lives. I still don't really know but I am thinking about it.
On Saturday, I had expectations. I expected that this was an event that Roger and I were doing together. Except, the event really wasn't what either of us had figured it was. So, instead of spending the day with me, he spent it with his band and with his friends. He did pretty much everything with them. He sat with them. He had lunch with them. Since this wasn't my usual group of band kids, I wasn't invited to join them. I ate lunch alone. I sat in the bleachers alone. I watched them laughing and inside, a part of me hurt. I was happy he was having a great time, but it still hurt that I was on the outside looking in.
Still, there were those moments where he was completely my boy...he ran over to me to make sure it was okay that he spent $5 of the money we'd set aside for his band trip. During the concert, he was sitting on the opposite side of the gym from me and I realized that we were sitting in the exact same position. He'd make faces at me from across the room and I couldn't help but smile.
What's the point of all this you ask? Just that Sunday, after his dad had picked him up, I was sitting there thinking about the weekend and I realized something. The very fact that he was confident and comfortable enough to not need me on Saturday meant that I had done my job. He may not know how to sew a button back on but he's learned the skills that will help him become the man that he wants to be and the fact that he'll still make goofy faces at me from across the room means that no matter how old he gets, he won't forget he's my kid. With that realization, I was filled with peace and that, my friends, is a very good thing indeed.
If you'd like to check out the mass band performance, check out this video!
If you'd like to hear the HHS Steel performance, head on over to my YouTube channel where it's almost all kids, all the time.
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Tuesday, March 28, 2017
the future
Labels:
alone,
Hastings High School,
kids,
personal,
reclaiming me,
Roger,
St Louis Steel Drum Festival,
Steel Drum,
the future
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