I am not good with lasts…finales…endings. I was that weird kid who cried on the last day of school…every year. I haven’t stopped doing that, by the way. My friend Kim and I were talking over a table of old burger baskets and mismatched kitchen utensils and glasses from somebody’s carnival cruise in the 80s at the church garage sale a few weeks ago and I was coming clean about how the end of the school year always makes me a little weepy. Most people think I’m a nutjob, but she understood…because she does the same thing.
Finally. I’m not alone.
Last night was Dane’s last family dinner in the children’s department at church. Throughout the day, little memories of the past 5 years would flicker by…his first year as Shepherd #1 in the Christmas pageant…the year he was shepherd #4…then #8…then #3…then FINALLY…his last glorious year as Wise man #2…the Christmas parties and Easter egg hunts and Valentine’s celebrations and vacation bible schools. I really thought by the time we got there I was going to get a little verklept, especially if Mr. Reed made any mention at all of this being the last one for the 5th graders.
Thankfully, he did not, thus saving me from being the idiot over there crying at the fun fun party.
Besides, I was having brownies with ice cream.
That helped a lot.
So, tomorrow I am going to pack up the boys, grab the Teacher, swing through Belton and grab the one at UMHB, then hit Austin like the Clampetts when they got to Beverly Hills.
I wonder if I could strap my office chair to the top of the party van…
Now for the point.
When Reagan blazed into Austin four years ago, she did so with such ferocity, such fearlessness, that I was, quite frankly, in awe of her fierceness. I didn’t drive in a big city til i was nearly 28 and then it was only because i had to take my mother with an ABDOMINAL AORTIC ANEURYSM to Houston for LIFE-SAVING surgery…and here was this child, my kid…taking Austin head-on.
The BIG doesn’t scare her.
Which is why she is going to live in New York come hell or high water.
Anyway, when she ‘went away to college,’ she really did. There was none of this coming home every other weekend or every weekend (as the case was with my oldest…don’t get me started) or even once a month.
And I missed her so much.
But thank the Lord and the internets, it wasn’t like I didn’t get to talk to her…but i missed face time…but it made the times she came home more
YAY IT’S REAGAN HAVE SOME LASAGNA RED MEAT ANYTHING YOU WANT LET’S WATCH REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY.
I do wish, though, that I had gotten to go visit more…show up with food and spend the weekend more…make her take me to see the bats and buy Longhorn earrings and Texas flag coffee mugs at the Capitol more…eat TRUDY’s more…and Amy’s Ice Cream more…
and that was the plan…
until like a lot of other folks my work took a turn for the ugly and I was suddenly not only making LESS, but making LESS THAN I HAD WHEN I FIRST STARTED in this business 17 years ago…and that, coupled with having to work Saturdays again, made fun weekend trips a little impossible.
And now she is graduating and my chance to do all those things with her…poof. Gone.
Thanks to time and money.
Benjamin Franklin is the one who came up with that saying…Time is Money.
And I wish I had more of both.
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