It’s a new season

Choking back tears, I looked around the room at the other parents seated near me and was relieved to see I wasn’t the only one trying to stay composed. We were at Accepted Students Day at my oldest daughter’s college of choice and they were showing us a “move-in” day video.

College? Move-in day? This child I have lived with and loved the last 18 years was going to go live somewhere else?

I immediately flashed back to watching a video at her kindergarten orientation and at the time I was also choking back tears while they explained all the wonderful things the kids would be doing after they were ripped from loving parents’ arms to get on a bus to take them to school for hours at a time. Well, maybe they didn’t describe it exactly like that, but that was how it sounded to me.

This move-in day video wasn’t much better. I’ve done a pretty good job of being in denial most of my daughter’s senior year so far, but this video brought me back to reality…pretty soon that was going to be us rolling suitcases and carrying boxes into a campus dorm. And, then we will leave without her.

Once I had a chance to mull it over for a few days, I started thinking about how she obviously survived kindergarten (and beyond!) and how ready she was for this next stage of her journey. I realized that similar to the seasons we experience in the natural realm, our family is preparing for our own “seasonal” change. In fact, we just celebrated the first day of spring last week, which seems so applicable to what is happening in our lives. It’s the start of something new, imparting a feeling of expectancy and a sense of hope.

Changing seasons can be challenging. It is sometimes difficult to say good-bye to the past and have the courage to discover what the future will hold. But we all do it at some point. Whether it means sending a child off to college, caring for an aging parent, moving to a new home, adding to a family, taking a different job—at some point that new season will begin to feel normal.

And I realized it is definitely okay to experience all the emotions that go along with those changes as long as we don’t dwell on the past so much it keeps us from anticipating—and enjoying—the future. So I am going to try to embrace the change and be thankful for it!

As winter thaws into springtime, do you find yourself in the midst of a changing season in your own life? If so, please feel free to share your experience and your thoughts in the comments.

By Melissa Kindall
Social Media and Special Communications Project Manager
Corporate Communications & Public Relations