Commencement Reflections

Graduation Reflections
Trellace's Georgetown Graduation

Trellace with Albright quoteOn the eve of my oldest daughter’s college graduation, other milestones came quickly to mind.

College graduation? It seemed as if I had just written about the connection between potty training and college.

As parenting goes, I have always dreaded the day when I uttered these words: This is worse than potty training. Since my kids are pretty close in age, I was potty training at least one of them for three straight years. I’m being self-aware not self-deprecating when I tell you: I’m not good at teaching toddlers the tricks of the toilet. I’m not. (And please don’t leave me any tips here because really, I’ve heard them all and besides, they pretty well have it down by now.) Read more here.

Not long before that, I wrote about when Trellace was a baby and people suffered from the misunderstanding that I considered having an infant a burden. They had a compulsion to comfort me.

“It’ll get better,” the stranger said, punctuating his insightful comment with that know-it-all belly laugh that indicated he knew exactly zilch, “in about 18 years!” His laugh crescendoed, then faded into the distance as he walked away shaking his head, still snickering at his own joke. Read more here.

On the contrary, it always felt to me as if time was slipping away; that my babies were growing up too fast. What a blessing it was for me to learn the difference between chronos time and kairos time.

. . . “Where has the time gone? I don’t know, but I think I’m looking for it in the wrong zone. In Greek, there are two words for time. There’s Chronos—time that is measured, ya know, chronologically. And then there is Kairos—time that is measured by experiences. Chronos dissolves into seconds, days, years. Kairos, though . . . Kairos remains. (Read more here.)

In chronos time, it was four years. In kairos? The blink of an eye. Just before I blinked, back in 2012 just before she left for college, I wrote this piece. It’s déjà vu all over again.

These days, in my world of parenting, I’m experiencing some serious déjà vu. See, when Trellace was about to start kindergarten (ya know, yesterday), good-hearted folk, attempting to be encouraging, offered familiar platitudes. Things like, “Oh she’s ready!” or “She’ll do great,” or “She’ll be fine! Don’t worry.” Now she’s going away to college, and those tired expressions have been roused for the occasion. (Read more here.)

Sunrise, sunset . . . I don’t remember growing older. When did they? (Fiddler on the Roof)

By Aileen MItchell Lawrimore

Aileen Mitchell Lawrimore is a mother x 3, wife x 35 (years not men), minister, speaker, writer, retreat leader, and lover of beagles and books. She has a lot to say.