The ride home took about seven minutes. Test results in hand, I think we both knew what the other was thinking. We'd done all we could and left the rest up to you and the decision was made. Those numbers matter and while you can't quite understand it yet, it was largely on you TO understand it and do better.
College-bound or no. We've had this discussion 17 million times and you've morphed from resistant to angry to accepting to agreeable. We all had the same goal in mind. Play those numbers and play 'em to win.
Over the past year, we've seen you grow in maturity and understanding, wisdom and grace and as you've grown more into who you're going to be, we've done the same.
Being your parent is hard.
Beautifully, wonderfully, agonizingly hard.....and not because of YOU, but because of us.
You see, son, we want the best for you. We want every breath you take to filled with passion and purpose and we sought that goal from the day you were born!
From the video tapes with classical music with black, white and red shapes floating across the screen to classes specifically geared towards screen-writing for your budding video passion, every move has been to help you become the person we KNEW you could become.
And you have.
It just doesn't look like we thought it would. And what we just realized tonight, for the first time, is we've parented you with this odd combination of both hope and fear. Hope that you'd do all the right things and fear you'd do it all wrong and yet tonight we're left wondering who's actually been right and wrong all along.
You live with this passion and gusto. Self-motivated. Kind. Caring. Genuine. Loving. Creative. Inspiring. Tenacious.
Every single thing we hoped and prayed for. You are everything we are, but better. Times a thousand. You don't let fear of the unknown cloud out your hope of the same and I think we forgot how powerful that can be because we were taught to be very afraid.
We've tried instill this desire to make this one go around on the planet worth your while, to be the best you can be and I think we missed it actually happening because we were so worried that it didn't look like what we thought it should look like and truth be known, a little afraid of what "they" would think if we became fully vested in allowing a man-child to pursue a passion that takes him down the path of HUGE resistance.
But it's not your job to walk in my shoes or down any of the paths we've chosen. They're your shoes and your life and they are some pretty big damn shoes (and hip to boot!)
So while we totally expect you to maintain your responsibility to society at large (you know, schoolwork, chores, family relationships...) we accept your choice to give your passion all you got. We can't be those people who say we're about living outside the box and then systematically force you into our own. We can't truly believe that God makes us who we are and then ask you to be someone else's version of the perfect child just for the sake of looking the part of the the perfect parent.
You aren't and neither are we.
There is no line drawn that can't be erased and no path that can be doubled back on. Not yet. You're young and with that comes a certain ability to be a little braver, stronger and smarter than us old folk who got so busy worrying we stopped dreaming.
Don't stop. Not yet :)
Go for it.
Love,
A mom who will never be sure I'm doing the right thing, but tonight I'm more sure than I've ever been.
