Work. Trust. Let Go.

My son, Grant, graduated from college yesterday.  And now he’s going to leave me.  Okay, just kidding, sort of.

He is leaving me to go to school in London.  And while I’m elated that he is moving forward with his life, going out into the big world to see and taste it all only like a young person can, I have to admit I’m feeling sorry for myself, and scared – freaky frazzled scared – for him. Because, when it comes down to it, I don’t know what he’s going to face abroad, in graduate school, without the support of family and friends. Really, I just mean ME; without MY support.  I am his mother, and he’s only 17.  He’s still a baby, as far as I”m concerned, much to his annoyance.

“I really can handle this myself, Mom,” I’ve heard on many an occasion.

And I know he’s right. But that bold statement is usually followed by, “What’s for dinner?”  “Did you make me a lunch?” and “Why don’t I have any clean white shirts?”.

So while I know he will be fine in the grown-up world, far, far away from me, I can’t help but worry that he is woefully unprepared.  One of the acutely obvious drawbacks of going through college very young is that you end up skipping some of the parts of the experience that, while very painful and often leave a scar, are exactly the parts that actually teach you something you’re going to use later in life.  When you go through college while you still have to live at home with Mommy and Daddy, those big lessons are softened, and I worry, may not have stuck.

Just in case my son reads this post, I will refrain from listing off the bumpy lessons I learned in college.  The ones that involved picking the wrong guy and being the wrong girl. Doing too much of some things, like drinking and eating Taco Bell, and not enough of others, like eating my vegetables and praying.  Spending time obsessing about things that I wouldn’t even remember a year later, but not paying attention to things that could have made all the difference.  Will he learn these things without the true college experience?  Have I deprived him of the very lessons and pain he will need to survive?  Have I undermined Darwin?

Have I done enough to prepare him for the world?

All of this ferris wheel thinking (up and down, stuck at the top, round and round) gets me nowhere.  It’s the same type of thinking I do in a race – Did I do enough speedwork? Mileage?  Get enough sleep?  Is that little pain in my foot something to worry about?  And on and on.  I solve nothing, add nothing, accomplish nothing with this dead end thinking, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it.  In fact, the only thing that stops me from doing it is finishing the race or, during those rare, beautiful moments, letting go.

I read somewhere that the great athletes have something in common.  When they are put into high stress situations, they don’t choke.  Well, duh, I thought when I read that.  But then came the secret: they don’t choke because they do the work and then trust their training.

Work.  Trust.  Let go.

So simple to type, so nearly impossible to do, with racing and children.

Work.  Trust.  Let go.