A Lost Tuesday

In a manner of speaking, anyway

This year I have been writing on three Tuesdays (adding one on five-week months) a month. Except I lost yesterday. In a manner of speaking, that is, because I knew right where it was. It was a very long, very busy day, and I have no real regrets.

My son swore in to the Navy, signed his contract, and now he’s off to his first rigors of RTC. I was awakened by a call at 0238 from him declaring he was safely there, wouldn’t be able to call again for 2-3 weeks, and would write a letter sooner. He is off on his big adventure, the career he’s chosen, and when I see him again in person, months from now, he will not be the same boy who left home on Monday. Even Tuesday when we spoke briefly after the ceremony, he was already holding himself straighter, more serious about his intent. I can only hope he holds to that during the several weeks of Boot, and when I see him again he is a man grown.

He will be going from RTC to a training school, and given the tempo I may very well not see him in person for a year. A lot of changes happen in that short a time when you are intensively being forged into a new role in life. My baby isn’t coming home again. He is off into the wide world and his own life fully. I’m happy for him, but yes, I did cry a little later in the day when he couldn’t see.

I am very proud of him, tempered by knowing that not every recruit makes it through this process. I think he will. In the meantime, I came home to having taken a day off. Which meant that I rested (the hotel bed was horribly uncomfortable), took delivery of landscape timbers for the garden, was unexpectedly on an episode of Live! From the Blanket Fort, and spent my evening working on a book formatting project with a tight deadline that I had already pushed off. My life is no less busy with the nest emptied than it was while we progressed through the last few weeks of preparing him for that big step.

I am very tired. Two nights of interrupted sleep, and I’m feeling every bit of the ‘old lady whose children are grown and gone,’ as my husband reminded me that I am now. Writing takes more energy than I had yesterday, or indeed I suspect today.

Onward! Into the next phase of life, but first, a nap.

Roses in my garden. One of the last photos I sent him, to remind him what he’d done here. He picked these out, as well as the red climbing Blaze and the Ketchup-and-Mustard roses.