May 2021: Quitting, Moving, Prom, Wedding, Graduation & Exhaustion

 My firstborn has graduated high school! 

But pulling off a good experience for him took some pulling of strings. May was a busy month for us. Busy is an understatement...

Back in February, my husband deployed (technically, it's a nine-month rotation) to Germany. The catch is that we knew our son would be graduating in May. As soon as my husband landed in Germany, he got a move on paperwork to submit a request to come home for the event. 

We waited and waited for this approval. 

In late March, I booked his ticket home, not entirely sure if he would be able to come home. It was a risk I was willing to take -and spend- considering the world was beginning to open back up with overseas travel, and plane ticket prices began soaring.

Finally in April, the request was approved. 

My family was also smacked in the face with a sudden move. Albeit a local move, it was definitely not planned. In late March, my property manager called, stating the owner wanted to sell immediately. I was in a month-to-month agreement, thus had no choice in the matter. By April 1st, a new lease was signed and the kids and I began shuffling the contents of our house to a new, smaller house. 

My basement storage was a hot wreck!

Some of my son's friends randomly showed up during our moving process and helped out. This was them chillin' at the new house, making fun of the kids playing basketball on the street.

House for sale!

Good riddance, ugly kitchen. 

After paying an arm and a leg for carpet cleaning, even though my carpet was clean.

The day before our final walkthrough, this random tulip popped up in the middle of the backyard. In the *almost* four years of living there (3 yrs, 8 mos), I had never ever seen a flower sprout anywhere in the yard, other than where I planted them in the flower bed out front. This was nowhere near the flower bed. Weird.

Oh yeah, I also quit my job at the high school. Little did I know I would have to move when I gave my two week notice at work. For the amount of money I made, it was not worth being made to feel small every day by certain people. I became a master at ignoring some folks, but there was just one person in particular that I no longer wanted to look at daily...

That's reason number one. Number two? I was also a full-time college student struggling to keep up. It was a multi-layered decision that I do not regret and will not fully get into here. I really loved my supervisor,  my co-workers and the kids I worked with, though. They are what made the decision tough. They are what kept me in the building for so long!

Some of my wonderful coworkers surprised me with these cute bouquets on my last day.

Last day fit check.

My own school stuff worked out in the end. Made the Dean's list, but irritated they got my major wrong on the published announcement. I enrolled as 'General Studies' because I was undecided, but changed my major to Pre-Law last August. I should probably look into this soon and fix it. 👀

I have one more semester left before I possibly begin riding the struggle bus in law school in 2022! NOTE: This topic is a whole post of it's own, in the near future. 

My final day at work was also the same day I signed a new lease. 

When it rains, it pours. 

Really, it was imperfect, perfect timing. There was absolutely NO way I would have contained an ounce of sanity if I had to move 3000sqft of house contents during a deployment AND work full-time AND be a full-time student.

All of the above played a role in my son's prom and graduation experience.

His childhood was coming to a close, but there were so many other unexpected details in our life happening all at once. I felt super overwhelmed. He was mentally and emotionally drained; caught between excitement and being frustrated. 

With that in mind, I decided to dedicate my all to giving him the best possible last month of high school that I could.

Prom:

My son originally planned to fly solo for prom. We are parents that try not to encourage relationships, rather let them happen organically. Thus far, not a single teen child of mine has brought home a boyfriend/girlfriend, and we are not bothered by it one bit. That's not to say that any of them have never had someone they've considered a bf/gf, it's just that if one has ever existed, we've never noticed it consuming their lives.

About two weeks before prom, my son got to talking with one of his theater friends, who happens to be a girl. By the end of the conversation they had decided to be each other's dates. This put me into a frenzy. Not because I was excited that he had a date, but because a date comes with extras. We had to figure out what she was wearing and somehow tie his tux colors to her dress. We had to order a corsage, compromise on times and dinner and meeting places. Being a prom mom is exhausting.

On the evening of prom, we met his date and her mother at a local park and I was able to snap a ton of photos before they sailed off to dinner. I could've taken millions more, but they were already running behind to meet friends.

I made sure to get some of him alone, and I also had my daughter in tow and forced her to snap a couple of pics of my son and I.

By 10pm, the boy had called saying he was leaving to go hang out at his friend's place on post (the friend's dad was the Garrison Commander at the time). He had been there several times before to play D&D, so I didn't stay up biting my nails. I knew where he was, and I knew he was in the presence of normal people. I ended up picking him up at midnight because he is not fully licensed to drive yet, but was curious to get the story about the change of plans. Long story short, the date wanted to go party; my son isn't the party type, so they amicably parted ways at prom.

Wedding Weekend:

My husband flew in on the 19th of May, and the next morning -the 20th- we hit the road, headed for Colorado Springs.

One of our very good friends (at this point in our lives, he's family) was getting married and the timing of my husband being home couldn't have been planned out any better. We just had to get there on time for a Friday wedding on the 21st. We spent two full days in the Springs, which was my first trip anywhere outside of a 30 mile radius since Covid began.

We made it. The wedding was beautiful, everyone had a good time. We were able to see and reconnect with some folks who we hadn't seen in years. One of our daughters was also able to stay the night at a friend's house who had moved from Junction City to the Springs over a year ago. Little wins for all.

The wind was crazy. Pretty sure everyone knew what color underwear I had on by the end of the evening.  

When we got back to Junction City, my husband was in adjustment mode. When he deployed, we lived in an entirely different house. But believe it or not, this is not our first rodeo with suffering through a move during a deployment: 

In 2010, stationed at Fort Lewis, I had to move while he was in Afghanistan. He outranked the neighborhood we lived in on post.

In 2013, stationed at Fort Campbell, I had to move while he was in Afghanistan, again. We lived off post, but our lease was coming to an end and the owner suddenly decided to gift the house to his daughter and not renew our lease. We had 30 days but I found out with 14 days left...I was out of town and the property manager mailed the letter. Only two days after I signed a new lease elsewhere did the owner's daughter change her mind and the owner backtracked, stating we could stay. Le sigh. I had already began moving and could not go backwards. What was done was done.

Skip forward in time to 2021. I honestly laughed when I saw my property manager was calling on a random day at 3pm. I just knew what was about to be said. I swallowed the pill without choking because I had no choice, and because I've become pretty used to the 'suck'. 

Needless to say, I spent the first few days of my husband being home explaining where stuff was located, or why it was placed where it was. Honestly I didn't put much thought into this house when I moved in because...we are officially on orders to PCS to a new duty station. Half of our life is still packed up in boxes in the garage because I know this house is temporary. I cannot be bothered with trying to make it feel like home.

What was nice is that the kids were still in school during the week. The husband and I had time to cuss and discuss our impending move, in person, rather than over the phone. It's very easy to argue and get frustrated when looking at dates on a calendar, separately. And we argued A LOT about this over the phone. 

In person, we were able to better explain each of our thought processes and why this date or that date works or does not. Army moves are very detail oriented, especially with a large family and children in school. It's not a simple as putting crap in a moving truck and leaving a trail of dust in the rearview.

Graduation weekend:

The graduation was held on Sunday, the 30th. I know. Weird.

The date had changed three times since the beginning of the school year. Something about a regional or state track meet eventually took precedence. Priorities, right?

The day before, we did a little BBQ for my son, inviting the only army friend we have over (she's prior service, but her husband currently works with mine. He's just stuck in Germany). We made an ice cream sundae bar, decorated, and had a chill day. When my son woke up to the balloon arch, he looked at me like I was crazy for taking the time. In our house, we do celebrations on a small scale with just our family nucleus -sometimes we'll invite a few friends- but the decorations no one ever forgets!

On graduation Sunday, we let our graduate pick a restaurant to have lunch at. We knew that planning a dinner would be difficult because the ceremony was in the evening. He chose a Japanese steakhouse called Umi, in Manhattan, so to Umi went went. We completely splurged on sushi and hibachi. By the time we got into the car to go home, everyone was stuffed and ready for nap time.

Because he had to be at the school by 6pm, we got ready early. Took pictures outside of our house and then again at the school. He was over it, but I'm glad he didn't fight it! 

After taking our seats in the gym, it seemed like forever before the ceremony began, but once it got started, the time passed quickly. Due to a blend of weather forecast and Coronavirus existing, his graduation was actually cut into two parts, making it a shorter than typical ceremony. A-K surnames went first at 3pm. L-Z went at 7pm.

He was kinda bummed he was not able to see his A-K friends graduate in person, alongside himself, but we did watch the live stream of it while getting ready.

Before we knew it, he turned his tassel, threw his mortarboard in the air, and we had our first high school graduate. 

Such a bittersweet milestone. 

You want your children to grow and go forth in the world, but this piece of you wants this moment to never come. It seems that if they remain little, they remain out of harm's way; that you're better equipped to scoop them up and fix whatever may go wrong in their lives.

People in my life -those with no children and/or young children- have expressed how "cool" it must feel to have a kid graduate. Honestly, I hate the feeling. If I could keep them young and at home forever, I would. But we cannot be more happy for him and excited for our family to experience new milestones.

What's next for him and for us? 

The husband returned to Germany, but should be back in the U.S. by September for our PCS move. We will depart Kansas sometime between September and late October.

Because we will move after the start of the fall college semester, both my son and myself will hold off enrolling into classes until spring of 2022. Nobody likes a fat W on a transcript.

Until then, it's a slow, hot summer for us.