Bittersweet

Just because you got the story of my trip home doesn't mean I'm done thinking and talking writing about all of this Bentley going off to school business.  I have a lot of thoughts tumbling around in my head and-- much like Dumbledore's pensieve-- it's high time I got them out and examined them a bit more closely so I can try to make sense of it all.  

I'm not usually a terribly emotional person (except for fireworks, which always make me cry and I have no idea why).  All summer, everyone (everyone!) has been asking me how I'm doing with Bentley leaving so soon and I'd always answer with a hearty "Fine!" but in my heart I was like, Should I be more upset about this?  Because why would I be upset about my son going to the school I wanted him to go to?!  Everything was going great!  Sure, I'm nervous for him-- I want him to get good grades (much better than mine were my freshman year!) and find awesome friends and get ready for his mission.  That's a tall order and I really hope he can succeed.  So I've been nervous.  But not particularly upset.

I mean-- yes, I knew that I would really miss Bentley.  He's growing up to be such a fun kid (even though he's been taller than me for a while and has the deepest voice of any of the priests blessing the sacrament-- obviously he's going to feel like a kid to me for a long time to come).  We have a lot of fun together-- we have the same sense of humor and enjoy the same shows-- we're always up for watching another episode of Buffy or Arrested Development.  Late at night he'll pull up a bunch of saved Tiktoks to show me and Craig and we have the best time laughing together.  Or he likes to wait until around 10pm and suddenly ask us a truly interesting question about politics or Church doctrine and we'll sit around discussing it all and it's so amazing watching him learning and getting it.  

I don't usually bother saying it on this blog because I figure you all know this already, but I honestly am so proud of the young man he's growing up to be.  And I just like him a lot, you know?  Because everyone loves their kids, but truly enjoying their company seems like next-level appreciation to me.  Bentley is there, all the way.

So yes, I'll miss him tons, but I'm also so happy for him!

But then, a couple of weeks ago, I was hanging out with some friends of mine, and the ones who are older than me and have grown kids started talking about how once those kids leave home, it's never the same again.  And I was like, "Wha--?  Why would you tell me this now...???  ...And why did no one warn me about this before???"  Because yes, he's in college now, but he'll still come home for Christmas and summers and-- this is just a break, right?  He's still my kid and he'll be coming home to me like he always has.  Right???

But this tiny, absolutely stricken part of me knew they were probably right.  And suddenly I remembered walking down the aisle as a bridesmaid at my sister Leah's wedding and sobbing my guts out because I knew our family would never quite be the same again.  (I felt this way even as I adored my new brother-in-law and was so happy for Leah!)  And it slowly started to dawn on me that this was the exact. same. thing.

I wanted to scream at everyone: Why didn't you warn me about this?  What kind of cruel joke is this that you raise these awesome little human beings and then they leave and hardly ever come back???  

But the joke's on me because EVERYONE warned me.  My in-laws were talking about this day before Bentley was even born.

But obviously I never listened because who actually believes this stuff?  When you're in the middle of sleepless nights and constant home renovations and career changes and the odd move and all the stuff that life is constantly throwing at you, how much can you really believe in something seventeen or eighteen years down the road?  When would you even have time to contemplate such a wild occurrence until suddenly there it is, hitting you in the face and you have to wonder how you never saw it coming.

That's me.  THAT was dropping Bentley off at college.  The raw gut-punch that everyone around you who told you this was coming and asked how you were doing was absolutely right and you're an idiot for not seeing it but here it is and your family of seven that you've been enjoying for the past nine years, and your son who you've loved every day of his life beginning with when you first found out you were pregnant with him is far away and hard to talk to and nothing will ever be the same again and this is just the beginning as they each take their turns leaving the safe little nest you've done nothing but build for them for eighteen years.  And I know that this is the best possible outcome, but that doesn't mean that it isn't also sort of the worst and that life can be cruel and bittersweet even in the best of times.

That was dropping my son off at college.  Bringing children into the world is physical labor, but everything that comes after that is a slow transition from physical to emotional labor as you gradually stop carrying them everywhere and instead learn first to help them take those timid little steps and then to reassure them that even after they fall, they can still get back up again.  And then gradually that help is less about the physical falls and more about the emotional hardships we all struggle through, but either way, life continues to be a series of letting go and watching and hoping the next fall won't be too bad and that this time they'll get up without even needing your assurance.  But you're always going to be there cheering from the sidelines, even when your son is in Utah and you're cheering two thousand miles away from Virginia.

And now I'm going to be incredibly indulgent and post every picture I can find of the two of us together.

Just a couple weeks before he was born!  We'd just moved into our apartment in Manassas...

In the recovery room post-cesarean section, having my vitals monitored

The day of his baby blessing

My hair was SO long

Trip out to California for Carla's wedding.  I'm just barely pregnant with Kendra at this point...

At Aunt Rachael's wedding (and I'm pregnant with Ryder here)

Hershey Park

Baptism Day

Field trip to Cox Farms (friend Peter peeking in the back!)

Our first batch of chicks

End of 3rd grade (still at Sudley Elementary)

Starving to death our first night in Panama City

Some scout thing where he had to kiss my cheek

Right after 5th grade graduation

Snoqualmie Falls in Washington

Walking along the baselines of Safeco Field

Doughnuts from Sluy's in Poulsbo

Inside the Amazon Spheres

At a corn maze

Christmas Eve night

We're just so beautiful!

Recreating the statue in Nauvoo!

Hiking

Alaskan cruise

Trying to get BYU housing while on vacation

Seminary graduation

And high school graduation

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined my adorable little baby growing into such a fine young man

My First College Drop Off

After that stunning realization, there was nothing to do but get up and get ready for church.  I was so tired I ended up taking a quick nap before our 11:30 sacrament meeting.  But in between those times, Bentley and I enjoyed hanging out some more with Jenna and Nick and their super-cute kids.  Church was fine.  I opted to go to YWs with Jenna (mostly because I figured I'd rather stick with her AND because Relief Society is boring).  But it was definitely weird having me and my Mom suddenly show up there, although everyone tried to be very gracious about it!  (Poor Bentley had agreed to go to YMs with Nick, but he hadn't realized until he was already sort of committed that Nick taught the deacons!  Oops!)  And then while I was trying to sit through the lesson, Craig was frantically texting me asking to call because he was stressing about our upcoming Tuesday activity.  Oh, well.

We left as soon as the lesson was over, raced home and ate my Cafe Rio leftovers, and then hurried to visit...  President and Sister Grames-- my mission president from my entire mission in Sendai, Japan (from 10/2000-3/2002) and sort of my backup parents for that entire time.  I love them dearly and was so happy to get to spend some time with them catching up!  Unfortunately, we were so busy chatting that I didn't think to take a picture.  Darn it!  Now I'll have to go see them again...  But it was really fun seeing them.  When I arrived, I had Bentley and my Mom with me so they could say Hi.  But I figured this would be a pretty boring visit for them, so my Mom headed off to visit a cousin on the other side of town, and Craig's brother Jason and his daughter Maya came and picked up Bentley after a few minutes.  (They were in town getting Maya settled at Weber State!)  And then after spending an hour or so at a park with Lindsy and Brayden, Jason collected me and brought us back to Jenna's house.  So that was a little crazy, but everything actually went really well.  I love it when my wacky plans actually work!

And once my Mom had rejoined us, we drove to Heber City to have dinner with Luke and Kat Hogan!  People who really read my blog might be familiar with the Hogan name-- they have been our family friends for forever and we have enjoyed countless Thanksgivings and other holidays with them!  Growing up Luke was Natalie's best friend, and the closest thing I've ever had to a little brother.  (Truth be told, when I realized that Craig was exactly two weeks younger than Luke, I was a little horrified.) Anyway, Luke and Kat lived in the Seattle area for quite a while, but then two years ago they defected to Utah, which was shocking.  Why would anyone leave the paradise that is Seattle for the little mountain town of Heber?  

It was fun to hear their answer, which (as I suspected) was well thought out and involved a lot of factors; it was nice to understand them better.  But more than that, it was just fun to hang out with them again!  (And they fed us really well, too!)  The best part of the evening though was probably when we figured out that Kat is good friends with Bentley's roommate's mother!  This was awesome for a number of reasons: first of all, she was able to reassure us that he's a good kid.  This was especially important because there had been some sort of mix up with their instagrams so that Riley was following Bentley, but hadn't allowed Bentley to follow him back and this had been a source of stress for Bentley.  The mom connection quickly sorted out whatever had gone wrong there.  The other good thing about this was now we knew that Riley was from Bothell, which meant we didn't need to worry about Bentley being stuck with a roommate from Orem who would go home every weekend to do his laundry, all while acting like he knew what it felt like to be homesick.  Those roommates are the worst.  So, yes, Bentley came away from this visit feeling much better about what was in store for him!

Luke and Kat, with their daughters Emi, Maya, and Naomi!

We'd planned on swinging by Bentley's dorm afterwards so that he could leave his church clothes and collect a few things he would need for his Foundations of Leadership conference.  But when we arrived there, Bentley realized he'd forgotten his ID card.  Someone was leaving and we caught the door, only for Bentley to admit that he'd ALSO forgotten his key.  So then we just drove back to Jenna's for the night.  Hopefully that will help him not make that mistake in the future!

We had to get up early the next morning, so we kept the car and dropped my Mom off at her hotel.  Bentley went straight to bed, and I stayed up hanging out with Jenna while she did laundry.  I could have stayed up chatting with her all night!

The next morning, we planned on leaving the house at 7am.  So Bentley was going to be up around 6 or so, and I was going to shower after he was done.  But this time, I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't get back to sleep.  

Me?  Stressed out?  Never!

So I got up, showered, and tried again to sleep, only to notice that I was getting texts from our poor seminary teacher who was locked out of the basement.  So I was up again trying to make sure someone let her in.  And then I went ahead and got dressed and packed.  We had no problem leaving on time!  We swung by Mom's hotel and she was also ready to go, so she accompanied us to Provo!  We swapped out all the stuff at Bentley's dorm (including grabbing his pillow, which we wouldn't have thought of the night before!).  We had time to kill so we took pictures in front of the BYU signage:

The flowers are sort of blocking the sign, but this one says "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve"

I like how my pants match the flowers, although I wish Bentley and I didn't clash!

And this sign says "The World is Our Campus" (it's so fun to be able to say "campus" again after UVA always has to be referred to as "the grounds"!)

He was mad at me for making him stand in front of the Brigham Young statue, since there were a couple of cute coeds walking by.  But he still smiled very nicely for me!

And then it was time!  We drove to LaVell Edwards Stadium and got him all checked in for the leadership conference.  He was group 18 and we gathered his stuff and marched him to the right number.  We were early (Bentley was understandably very antsy) so it was just us and some sort of counselor trying to make small talk with us while I tried to not start sobbing.  Finally I couldn't take it any more.  I'd warned Bentley that this would probably happen, but I tapped him on the shoulder, told him I had to go and that I loved him, gave him a hug, and walked away sobbing.  Grandma followed quickly after me (I really wish I'd asked her to get a picture of my hug, since a real Bentley hug is such a rare thing).  I sat in the car crying for a few minutes and then called Craig and cried to him.  Mom noticed the bug spray Bentley had forgotten in the car, but I couldn't say goodbye again, so I made her run it back to him.  And then we went to Waffle Love to cheer me, and then on to the airport.

Our flights were leaving within twenty minutes of each other, and were only a few gates away, so we got to hang out together looking at each other's pictures, which was nice.  And then it was time to say goodbye to my Mom, too!

Definitely a good day to NOT wear mascara

My flight was uneventful in the best possible way.  But when I stepped off the plane in Baltimore, I immediately got a text informing me that my next flight had been delayed three hours.  So that was pretty lame.  I cried on the phone to Craig some more.  I called someone with Southwest to see if anything could be done and when he couldn't help me I just sat there in silence until he finally asked if I had any more questions and all I could say was, "I'm just really sad and I want to go home."  But eventually I gave up and got myself some dinner, put on my pajamas in the airport bathroom, brushed my teeth and tried to not care.  Right before that flight finally took off (and well after I should have been home and in bed!), I got this picture from Bentley:

That lifted my spirits a little, at least, and made my extremely late night feel worth it.  Scream-singing Taylor Swift to keep me awake the entire drive home, I finally arrived at 3:15am and crawled into bed.  At least if you're going to be sad, your bed is a good place to be...

Utah, Day One

We woke up fairly early the next morning and got all ready and then had time waiting for my Mom to come get us.  (We were on east coast time and she's on west coast time, so we had very different ideas of what time we should be heading out!)  Jenna was wonderful and cut up a TON of fruit for me to eat, which was heavenly after whatever it was I ate while we were flying out (mostly french fries, goldfish crackers, and chocolate?  I don't even know...).  And I don't even like fruit, usually!  And it was so nice to sit around and catch up and watch her kids being crazy.  (These pictures are actually from different days, but it seems like a good time to introduce you to the Nelson family!)

There's me and Jenna!  (I never did take a picture of Jenna's husband, Nick, but he was around, too, and was an incredibly gracious host!)

Harper, the oldest, showing off her abs

There you can see Hunter, too

Here they're having fun torturing tickling Bentley

And Hazel, the youngest, also wanted to show off her abs.  She seemed so chill on the kitchen floor here-- she just cracked me up!

By the time we left to go shopping, Bentley was already complaining that he was hungry, but I told him we needed to get one thing done before we stopped for food.  We hit Costco and managed to find most of the things on our list: socks, underwear, some school supplies, and popcorn & goldfish crackers so Bentley had all the essential snacks in his dorm.  It was slow going since the store was set up just slightly differently from my Costco, so we had to wander around a lot.  By the time we finished, Chick-fil-A was no longer serving breakfast, so instead we introduced Bentley to the joy that is Kneader's French toast.  That was awesome, except halfway through my meal I realized that I was eating a huge breakfast at 10:45am and we were meeting Jenna at Cafe Rio at noon.  Oops?

We hurried to Target where we got the rest of the school supplies Bentley still needed (and fun stuff like a desk lamp!) and then enjoyed Cafe Rio.  I tried to not eat so much that I would be ill.  It was so good.

And then we went back to Jenna's house for some MUCH needed napping!!!  Much refreshed, we then drove to Provo.  Our first stop was the Creamery, where we got ice cream with my nieces Kamryn and Lindsy and their spouses, Connor and Brayden.  This was my first time meeting Brayden and he was just as nice as I'd heard, and it was fun sitting around catching up with everyone!

Then Bentley and my Mom put on nicer clothes and we went to cousin Shaunna's wedding open house!  It was just over in Orem, so a short drive, and it was so fun to see my cousins Kyle and Monica, and Uncle Bruce & Aunt Leanne!  My Mom had a TON of cousins she hadn't seen in a while, and we all got to sit around chatting and eating cake.  It was lovely.  And I only took one picture, so that was super lame of me.

Me and Monica

When the open house wrapped up, we headed back to Target.  Brayden had pointed out that Bentley was going to want a mattress topper for his dorm room, and we managed to get the last twin-sized one in the entire store!  Huzzah!  And then, then, we drove to Helaman Halls and got Bentley all checked into his dorm.  Ohmygoodness it was starting to get real!  We got him all moved in.  It didn't take very long at all.  

We need to get him some push pins so he can hang up his Kanye flag

I told him to look studious.  It turns out that's harder than you'd think!

I like this picture!

By the time we finished, we were both tired and hungry.  So we stopped by In-N-Out in Orem on our way back to Jenna's.  I was surprised at how many people were there at 11pm on a Saturday night-- who knew Orem was such a party town?  Mom and I felt very out of place amongst all the teenagers there.  And Bentley felt weird being there with his mom and Grandma, but what can you do?

By the time we got to Jenna's it was LATE and she and her husband had just barely gone to bed.  (They were SO NICE about us popping in and out!)  We'd decided we could go to church with them in the morning, but their meeting started at 11:30am, so we'd be able to sleep in.  I set my alarm for 9am just in case.  And instead popped awake at 6:30, way too early.  I laid in bed thinking about all the things we'd be doing that day, mentally preparing myself with the assuring fact that I would be returning home the next day right after I dropped Bentley off and with that thought my heart dropped into my stomach and it was all I could do to not burst into tears.

Somehow, I hadn't really FELT that I'd be saying goodbye to my son until that moment.  How in the world was I supposed to do that???