The last time I posted was in January, just ahead of our eldest child’s 18th birthday, when I whinged about a new strange ‘milestone’ that was more in the first of a series. Now, it’s about eight months later and the speed at which the transition from a teen to a young adult occurs is stupendously more rapid than anyone would ever tell you.

When I wrote the post in January, our oldest didn’t have a job, didn’t drive, hadn’t picked out a college, and really, really still seemed an awful lot like a kid still. Today, he finished his 7th day in a row “a little early” at just after 3:30; for reference, he’s typically on the job from 7:30 – 6:00 and sometimes much, much later. He’s building fences (and other general labor activities), which involves a hell of a lot of physical exertion. Today’s adventure involved driving around work trucks, trying out some new tools — and digging even more bloody holes. While he did that, I dug around on the Oregon State University website for more detail on logistics for move-in day (late September). Yesterday he was telling me about a high-school friend who graduated last year and is now going to have a baby and get married (don’t ask me the order of operations, I don’t know and it’s not anybody’s business).

All of that to say: inside of 8 months, I went from seeing a weak but meaningful milestone pass to ACTUALLY seeing the milestone pass. It’s real, just stretched out a bit. Not only does he have a job, but he’s also driving (quite a lot), has college all squared away for the fall, and is now going through what a lot of us went through after our senior year of high school – friends getting married, having kids, and becoming “real” adults.

In all, the chain of events over the course of the past eight or so months has been pretty ‘chill,’ punctuated with odd bits of drama here and there. We went to Oregon to check out schools, ticking the parent box of ‘touring schools’ that I was pretty damn sure was not a thing I’d ever be doing. We finished up driver training and got his license. He managed to find a job that offers as many hours as he can stomach (If I ever hear the words: “People just don’t want to work anymore,” someone’s getting punched in the nuts — the problem is PAY and DIGNITY, not ethic – if you feel the words spill out your mouth, maybe just stop watching fox news.) In any case, it’s all becoming very, very real. In a little over 1 month’s time, he’s leaving home, and while he’ll be back to visit, maybe even to live for a while, our little guy is launching, and that’s permanent.

While leaving home is a huge deal that’s not what got me today. What got me is that I was looking through ‘care packages’ you can buy your kid through the school and one of the things you can get is a birthday care package. That’s when I realized — he’s going to be there by himself on his birthday this winter. The first time ever. Not home for his birthday. Now, it’s FEELING real.