Melancholy

Endings and beginnings, pages turned, chapters closed, fresh starts, perils and opportunity…

It’s actually much harder than I expected sitting here now three days after the high school graduation ceremony and two days after the graduation party. I’m relieved the young man has completed this phase of his life and I’m happy for him to be able to move on to the next phase. This is good and wonderful and something he has earned in his own odd way.

But I’m sad, too. I’m going to miss him. The young man will be around but it won’t be the same. He has stepped onto a new platform where mom and dad aren’t the engineers and conductors they’ve been for the last 18 years. We hope he has what’s needed now to be able to take care of himself.

Times are tough. He has to compete for a shrinking resource base on several fronts. Much of what he has grown up with is going to disappear in his lifetime. Hopefully, he has the skills to adapt. There have been enough hard knocks in his life so he has a taste of adversity and should know how to make adjustments.

In an interview, the film maker George Lucas said his hopes for his children and people in general are to be able to take care of themselves, find some happiness, and one day to give something back.

Yeah, me too, George.