Life Marches On

They are almost all gone.

This one....

he saw the world stretched out before him,
he chose a path, and he is gone.

 

California is where he calls home today.


His view from his job on the boardwalk in Venice Beach



New people, new beginnings and a new chapter.  It is where he hopes to make his dreams his reality.
I have all the same prayers and wishes for him, though everything is new for him.  His wandering soul has always supplied with me a long list of prayers that never seem to change.

This one...

he has a new home. His first of his own, which he shares with two friends. 
Junior year in college, part time job, new responsibilities and bills to pay.

He has a new love.

 

He has the world spread out before him also.

 

 

And must decide what path to take.

 

 



My prayers and wishes for him have changed a little.  They are of a more serious nature and direction.
(I think I liked it better when my prayers were as simple as "please let him score a goal at his soccer game today.)

This one...

he has started his first year of college.

He is off to enjoy freedom he's never had before and has to learn how to balance responsibility for his studies and time to have fun.

 

He has a laid back approach to life but yet is filled with a spirit that cannot be contained.  He has such a zest for life and will never know a stranger.

So much is learned about one's self, that freshman year away from home. Sometimes it is learned the easy way, and other times, the hard way.  Clearly my prayers and wishes for him have shifted.  Calling on guardian angels to watch over and protect!

And finally, this one....

 

still at home, but gone much of the time.
Junior year of high school, working part time, sports to be played, jam sessions with his musician friends and time split between his dad's house and mine.

He has managed it all so well, not sure how he juggles so many balls at one time. 

I would be lying if I said I didn't worry they may all come crashing down.  It's a lot for a 16 year old.
Once again, my prayers and wishes are of a more serious nature.

I worry, maybe more than I should.  It is just the way I am.  My kids are no different in reality from anyone else's except that they are mine.  My heart aches and beats rapidly and painfully when I think of the things that can go wrong.  I honestly did not think it would be this hard.  I honestly believed that my children growing up would make things easier, less scary.  But it doesn't.  The monsters are bigger and way more scary than the boogie man under the bed when they were little.  I don't know how to fight the grown-up evils that are just waiting to take hold of our kids when they let their guards down.  And it is the lack of that knowledge that eats at me everyday and keeps me from sleeping soundly at night.

But, each day the sun does rise and we have made it through another day.  It is my wish to savor each day and each new adventure and journey my kids have.  Not to fill them with the fear I have, but to encourage that same feeling of having the world by the horns, that I had when I was their age. 

Everything is possible and nothing can stop you!