Freshman HOMECOMING.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Can we just pause for a moment and talk about how my son just went to his FRESHMAN HOMECOMING?

My firstborn son… the one who named me “mommy” when I was barely 20 years old – not old enough to legally purchase alcohol, but legally allowed to bring home a little life. No credit check required (else he probably would have stayed at the hospital).

The one who taught me what it meant to see a piece of myself outside of myself, living and breathing and eventually walking and talking and being.

My boy who was my baby while I was practically still a baby and who grew up as I grew up. The one who lived through the turmoils of my extended adolescence and taught me that the world is a whole lot bigger than me and what I want or need.

Can we talk about how fast the past 14 years have gone? How is it that I blinked and he transformed before my eyes from sweet and precocious into confident and independent? He’s my boy who suffered through the mistakes all first time parents make and somehow turned into an amazing young man with a real solid head on his shoulders.

See, the thing about Alex is, I not only love him but I truly enjoy him. He’s my kindred spirit, born with a love of words and music. He thinks so much and feels so deeply, but he holds his heart close to himself. So when he asks for a hug or for me to listen, it really means something. I don’t think he himself knows all it means just yet.

I know, still having a toddler and a newborn, how easy it is to wish the time away, but with my firstborn son I see the “end” too clearly, and I want to scream at time to slow and stop for just a minute so I don’t have to let him go so soon. The truth of the matter, though, is that I gave him up to God as soon as he was born, knowing there is only so much I can do on this earth to hold him and keep him safe.

So here he went to his first of several Homecoming dances with his first of (probably) several “dates” on his arm. And I loved him as fiercely as I tied on that bow tie as I have ever loved him in his life.

And he’s still so young. We still have time. But sooner than I want, he’ll go out into the world and do what he was designed to do. And that reality just hit home for me this week.

Ok, that’s all. ❤