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| Photo by Alan Cleaver. Used with permission. Click here for source. |
However much I may give intellectual assent to such a proposition, it is still always something of a surprise when it actually happens in real life.
The current case in point? My youngest son is leaving this morning to drive to Wisconsin where he will intern on an organic farm for a month. He is driving. Alone.
Did I do the same sort of thing when I was his age? Of course. Did I give more than a second thought to the possibility of storms, car trouble, getting lost, or whatever? No, not really. Did I scoff at the fact that my parents and my, at the time, future mother-in-law seemed overly worried and somewhat obsessed with all of the things that could possibly go wrong? You betcha.
Ah, but now, the shoe is on the other foot. I am the parent who has been checking the weather every two seconds. I am the one who has looked at the route over and over again. I am the one who has cautioned the boy about safe places to stop and eat. I am the one who is more than a little worried about this two-day journey.
And ... I can at least contact him by cell phone. I don't really know how my parents stood it. And the only consolation I can take is that time will continue to march on and there will come that moment when my kids will "get it." When they will wake up one day and suddenly find that they are beginning to see things from their parents' perspective.
And, hopefully, I will be around to commiserate with them, because, as much as one looks forward to "growing up," when it actually happens, it's not always all that it has cracked up to be.
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