graduation.......

ok, so tonight is the graduation ceremony for our middle child.......and this particular graduation is more nervewracking than the first go-around because a) we know all too well from the 1st one that it leads directly to the child being less and less at home and we are not prepared emotionally for this reality b)this child is speaking and c)i feel more emotionally attached to some of this child's classmates......partly because i am an lj addict.......partly because i respect their collective take on life....and partly because this group of folks have been so supportive of my middle child over the years...some from the age of 3...of that connection i cannot help to feel emotional........and while i felt emotion over certain of my eldest's classmates......they were just not supportive to him in the same ways........i was asked just the other day if i remembered any of the graduation speeches i have heard over the years.....yes, i do.....at my osu graduation, i and everybody else sitting in osu's horseshoe stadium.....heard british ambassador to tbe u.s.a. john jay comment...'you are born...and it's a brisk trot from there to the grave..' or words to that effect.......and this has proved to be so true......how could this baby be so old and so grown-up.......how could i have a child ready to be a senior in high school......how could i have greying hair and sagging body parts........how could i panic in last night's church choir graduation that my neck and shoulder pain could be cardiac in nature to the point that i stopped to take an aspirin before the drive home just in case..........all of these fears are tied up with the sense of loss that graduation brings.......one step closer to the end...of my youth, of my usefulness to this offspring......to my connections to a part of the stream of life......i will not have another child in high school til fall of 2007.......and by that time i will know nobody........and that could be a good thing.....if nobody remembers the eldest children when the youngest comes along..........and so i keep checking my watch to make sure that we are all fed, dressed-up and out the door on time for this huge event........well, maybe not fed.....in such cases of heightened emotion it is almost impossible to eat..........hey....maybe i could captitalize on that....the mother's emptying nest/mourning diet..........hmmmmm.......