Tonight is a special night in my fifteen year old's life: grade dance, before party, after party, bus transport, bow tie, new shirt, favourite stripy socks and a date.
While mothers can be involved in the before-the-before-party stuff like paying for The Shirt, shopping for the right pants, and checking that the stain is gone from the front of his brother's black jacket last worn at a matric dance, when the action happens, the real socializing, it's time to let go. I realise it is two and a bit years before he, too, will be signing off at school. And that increasingly the freedom I have been missing, and sometimes really wanting, will become mine.
Yet it is an equivocal space I am in. It is a shock to see one's boys as men, to see them grow into themselves, to hear others speak of their pleasant demeanour, and as much as one is delighted that one's children seem to be functioning well "out there", I am grateful for the fact of teenage-hood, for the gradualness of letting go, the push and pull of this time. The rite of passage is as much mine as it is theirs.
Okay, no more champagne for now. Thanks Lil for the sushi, and Nike for the stroll around the hood. Big walk tomorrow.
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