Well, a few minutes ago, the winter sky was bright blue with just a few wisps of grayish white clouds outside my office window. It is still quite early, using weekend time, which means anything before 9am is just too early to do much at all. I’m already sitting at the desk, drinking my second cup of java. I’ve scanned my site for orders, checked on my Etsy shop and thought I’d mumble a bit, here, about life and such.

If you read my blog, you already know that while I do like to talk about my products (soap, lotions and such), I also do spend time giving sales advice (especially on setting up craft shows) and about the weather. No matter where you live, the weather is important to your life. Nowhere I’ve ever been, though, takes the prize from North Texas. You never know what a day will bring. Bright skies one hour can turn into a deep gray drizzly funk. Windless can transform into a brisk breeze that makes your jeep skitter in the lanes while you drive.

Yesterday, I drove my son to college. He’s nearly 21. And he stayed around here, living at home, for a few years going to the local community college…trying to figure himself out. A lot of kids do that. Finally, he determined that what he wanted to do….was to do something. He wasn’t interested in a ‘sitting behind the desk’ type of job. So, he’s at trade school, learning electronics.

He’s really very smart. But like a lot of teens (okay I know he’s nearly 21, but he’s still a ‘kid’ to his momma), he was probably more afraid of making the wrong decision than of making a decision at all. So he didn’t. Until he did.

Not me. When I was 18, I was all fired up and ready to move to school. I went to Purdue, nearly a 14 hour drive from the home that my parents lived in. I adored being there. Always at the top of my class, I smugly assumed that I’d be running the school in a few months. Reality was a horrifying thing. I was at a school where everyone else was also at the top of their class (at least those that didn’t flunk out…) and for the first time in my life, surrounded by real peers, I had to work for what I wanted.

It was a scary time. But it was also a liberating time. And I’d trade it for nothing. Okay, I’d trade it for a few hundred million dollars…but not for much less. It made me, me. And that’s a bargain.

My son is going to have his own rough road to walk. He has a dorm setup that would have been the height of luxury for a Purdue student. His own room, with a sink. Connects to a shared bathroom (one other student). They have a largish living room with some fairly industrial furniture. A kitchen with a table and 4 chairs. Amazing.

The bedroom my son has, alone, is larger than the room I shared with another student during my freshman year. And we didn’t have that cool bathroom setup. Living room? Yeah. But no way a kitchen.

He’s not on the meal plan, so we loaded him up with groceries from Aldi. I head back there today with a bike and a few things he forgot. I was 14 hours away. He’s nearly 1.5.

He’ll be fine. He’ll soar on the freedom. And I hope he loves school as much as I did. But part of me…well, I’m a bit sad this morning. While I know he had to go. And while I was encouraging it…after all, there’s only so many times you can trip over a size 14 shoe before you begin to think that said shoes did not need to STILL be in your house…

I miss him. And while it is crisp and clean outside the house. And we’re going to tidy up the inside, too…cleaning the flotsam and jetsam of so many boy years here…and tucking them neatly into boxes until he needs them again…well, it isn’t the same.

And that’s okay. Birds have to fly. But sometimes, it is hard to see that maiden flight. Even though you know that they have to do it.