Graduation Time!

It has already been a busy week, and we haven't even gotten to Graduation yet!

Monday we decided to take the family out for a quick dinner to celebrate Jacob's graduation later this week.  We gave him his gift (a very nice laptop!) chatted and ate, and then I drove him home while Don drove Marcus and Ben home.  So Jake and I chatted a little about his plans for the summer (which apparently include some serious bed/couch hopping between here, his mother's and his friends' houses) and then I listened to him chat on his cellphone to his other graduating friends.  Making plans to just hang out and enjoy the freedom that comes with graduation and parents finally allowing some breathing room.  And I can remember feeling exactly what he is feeling ten years ago, when I graduated high school.

Then I have to pause, and repress to the urge to vomit.  How the HECK did I graduate TEN years ago????  It seems absolutely impossible that it was ten years ago that I graduated high school and started working at the cookie shop.  Yikes!  I really think it sounds a bit worse than it is though.  For the longest time, I would swear that I hadn't changed since high school.  My attitude was the same, my personality was the same, even my looks were the same.  And some of that is still true, but recently I've come to the conclusion that I have changed.  I've grown up.  A lot.  I don't think it was college, or marriage, or step-children, or even motherhood that made me grow up.  (Although I'm sure they did play a small part)  Honestly, I think it was three and a half years of pain and disappointment.  It sounds dramatic, I'm sure, but really, going through that, and then coming out the other side finally getting what I'd struggled so hard for, it's really a life changing experience.  I know just what I can handle, how much I can endure, and that I can survive.  And I can look back on that and see just how much I've changed.

So that's how I grew up.  I just hope the next ten years have something a little easier in store...