changes

While the title of this blog may be “2 dogs and a house, “ there are 5 children hanging around here somewhere. I’ve been told by child numero four that I must include my spawn. Her words. This is my attempt.

Last week, we drove 6 hours to bring our second born to his new home for the next four years, West Chester University. He is working his way towards a library science degree by way of a history degree.

The college experience is radically different from my time, even from my oldest son’s time in 2014. Everything is on the student id, yes, everything. Students bring laptops. They spend lots of time on their phones and laptops. The physical library is a place to study. The books on the shelves probably never leave the shelves.

The biggest difference between my time and my college freshman son’s time is the technology. When I entered the University of Delaware in 1986, the card catalog was still a large cabinet with drawers filled with paper cards. The library had just begun to move that information into a database, accessible only inside the library. Anything done on the computer was done at a computer lab. Our internet access was almost non-existent.

Change is going on within our family. Our oldest son is now in grad school about 7 hours away from our VA home. The next one in line, a college freshman, is about 6 hours away. My daughter is in 10th grade, and starting to look at colleges. She’s also itching to learn how to drive with big plans for driving to school next year. My youngest son is in 8th grade. The teen, college, and young adult seasons all within one family. We’re 5 years away from an empty nest.

We’ve also lived in Virginia for one year. I never imagined living anywhere, but Pennsylvania. Until we moved to VA, I had always lived within 45 minutes of my birth place. I have 53 years of memories in one area, including the birth of my children at the same hospital I was born at. We also left behind our middle son buried in a cemetary about 5 minutes from our previous home; he took his life in March 2020.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Alan Watts

We can choose change. We can be forced to experience change. Change can happen on its own as a natural part of the life journey. What matters is how we handle change, as a family or individually.