Endings and Beginnings

I've felt the need to publish something, anything, for a while now. I guess when we reach periods of transition in our lives, when we are grieving in anticipation of the loss of our current selves and looking forward nervously to the unknown, we feel the need to memorialize somehow our current state of mind before it is gone forever.

I just graduated last week with a Master's degree from Westminster College, which qualifies me to sit for the certification exam which qualifies me for the license which qualifies me to get a new job. I have received two degrees before this one, but neither felt real to me. I'm not sure why. This one had a feeling of weight to it, as if responsibility were settling at last on my shoulders for who I will be professionally for the rest of my life. In conjunction with these recent events I have had feelings of panic, of gravitas, of pride, of camaraderie, of gratitude. I am a mix of emotions. As I looked at my reflection in the window of the Shaw Center last Wednesday in my robe and hood, I saw myself for the first time as a scholar who had completed something worthwhile and through great effort. I have changed a lot in the past three years.

I know my professional self as a registered nurse, a nurse manager, a teacher, and a student. I am comfortable in these roles. But, I have used being a student as a shield from the realities of life as a working professional, and I feel like I have stepped out from a small room and seen the sky for the first time. I know someday I will see it as beautiful and full of possibility, but for now it just looks scary and infinitely vast. I am going from a position of self-confidence to being a novice in my field again, and it's hard to feel like I have much to recommend myself to those to whom I feel I must now prove my worth.

Our little family is in a state of flux. The basement is still torn apart, we just bought a new car (much earlier than expected - anyone want to pay a couple thousand dollars for a 1997 Odyssey which now will not start?), we have baby number 5 on the way and our little darlings for some reason keep growing up. I feel like I'm grasping a branch at the river's edge - when did life start flowing by so quickly? - but at least I'm in the water with so many people I love and that love me, and there's sure to be some small quiet beach somewhere past the rapids where we can rest for a while.

Apologies

When I got home tonight (after being away from home for 14 1/2 hours and not seeing any of my family awake today - blech) I walked into the bedroom to find hearts hanging from the ceiling and a Valentine's card from my wife on the bedside table. This made me laugh. What almost made me cry was the notes from my sweet little boys, which said "I'm sorry for being crazy. I'll try to be better." The reason I almost cried is because yes, we had a rough night last night doing bedtime without Mommy, and yes, I had to take away some stuffed animals and threaten and finally lock them in and fold laundry in my room until Alison got home, but I remember feeling like that when I was little. I remember the feeling of disappointing an adult just by being a kid, not understanding that the adult in the room did not think what I was doing was great fun. What those notes represent to me is not an apology from boys who had done wrong (although they should have listened better, it's true) but an indictment of a father who didn't take enough time for them that night, who was so focused on himself that he wouldn't help them wind down the way he knew he should. I know some of my legion of readers will be quick to reassure me that I'm a great dad and shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I know when I have ignored a prompting to spend quality time with my kids in order to gratify my self-interest, and then blamed them for it. And I hate that about myself. I went to bed last night (after Alison got the kids to sleep) knowing that if I died on the way to work today, I would do so with a profound sense of regret, and I knew what my sons' last memory of me would be: telling them to settle down and go to sleep and closing the door on them. I tried to go into their room after they were slumbering (I'm sure you older parents have done this one) and rouse them enough to give them a kiss goodnight, but they didn't stir. No, boys, I'm sorry and I'll try to be better.