Feeling the Graduation Feels
By Kristen Hatton, LPC Candidate
My schedule had been so full counseling others that I hadn’t had time to “feel my feelings” as I encourage my clients to do. But it was time. Graduation for my baby was around the corner. Since the way I best process comes through writing, I was up early, sitting down to be still and see what comes.
I couldn’t watch a football scene in “Friday Night Lights” (our longtime favorite series that we restarted again) without tearing up. At the Y during a workout class, I teared up during the warm-up chant, “I believe that we will win!” At dinner one night, imagining where we would be sitting two weeks from then, my eyes watered up again. The end felt surreal. Really, where did the years go? We moved to Oklahoma and he was in Pre-K.
At the end of football season in November, I didn’t think I could be sadder at graduation. I also thought because we’ve graduated two before, and Pete and I prepped for the empty-nester years in 2021 with our ABC dating, I would be fine. Turns out, closing this chapter is as hard as others told me it would be.
We have loved the teen years! Not all of it—certainly there were times I wouldn’t repeat. But over the last 13 years of parenting through the pre-teen and teen years, the energy, laughter and noise of kids filling our home, the friendships we’ve made with so many parents, the school activities and sporting events have defined our life in Oklahoma. While close friendships will remain, no longer will we gather in the places where parents naturally are. The void of activities that have dotted our calendars for years already saddens me.
What really gets me is thinking about the final empty chair at the dinner table. Knowing too, there will not be the spontaneous chess competition or the swiping of my favorite blanket as the three of us settle into our living room spots to watch whatever series we’re on. Even the floor not scattered with seven pairs of shoes, or the half-full glasses of tea no longer left out on multiple countertops I will miss. These things, so endearing of my youngest, leads me to the grief and loss swirling within me.
Oh, at last–the feeling: Grief. We don’t always recognize or name the various losses that are a part of our normal, everyday experiences as grief. Doing so, though, is the way through it. I need to sit in the loss of what has been my reality for nearly a quarter-century. Not giving myself that space—or giving others that space when loss (any loss or transition, big or small, has occurred)—can lead to resentment, bitterness, numbness. So, as I write, I see my need for unscheduled space to reminisce, to soak in these final days, to just be.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)”
If you have a senior, as excited as we may be for their future, family life will never be exactly again the same. I encourage you not to dismiss the sadness. Time for grief is healthy.
If you know a parent with a senior and feel she/he has been unavailable lately–in part, the impending loss may be why. I know, true of me. So, allow them the space to soak up the lasts and remember what was.
As a parent who has gotten to the other side of graduation with my first two, and also witnessed friends embrace the freedom of an empty nest, I know that time will come for me too. Just not quite yet.
Kristen Hatton is a LPC Candidate at TLCC. Her website for books and blog is
www.KristenHatton.com
