Graduation is coming - ready or not!

My son is a senior.  My son is almost finished with the school year.  My son is going through commencement on June 13.  My son is not excited about this change.  He isn’t doing a countdown to the end of the year.  He may/may not be trying to prolong some of his work to keep the end from happening; however, it’s coming.

As the end of the school year is rapidly approaching, my son is also having to attend to many different transition areas:

*Meeting with Social Security

*Trying to figure out transportation since his pickup point is too far from our house and it isn’t safe to get there (no sidewalks)

*Teleconferences and meeting with his Vocational Rehab counselor to create an Individualized Employment Plan (There is great stress/anxiety involved with this since he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to do when he grows up.  We tell him it is one step at a time.)

*Placement tests at the community college  

The reality for him is that this is going to happen.  He is more accepting of it, but it doesn’t mean he likes it.  He informed me one afternoon that “growing up sucks!”  Whether or not it does, we tell him repeatedly that it is happening.  Embrace it!

All that being said, Monday was a breakthrough moment for him.  Last Friday he had a teleconference with his Voc Rehab counselor to discuss some ideas for his employment plan which will be developed at a meeting on Thursday.  

[On any given day, his plans for the future change.  He has ADD and is always in “think” mode about his options for the future.  We are okay with that, but the counselor needs something to write down on his plan.  My son’s passion is History, and we have discussed many different career paths for a History major.....]

So, he told his counselor he thought he might go with a Business degree which has been "briefly" discussed before.  

Three days later, on Monday morning, he told me that he spent a lot of time thinking about his future over the weekend and he feels strongly about pursuing a career in History.  I told him that he would need to discuss that with his Voc Rehab counselor at their meeting on Thursday.  

“Oh, I already talked to her.”  

“What?”
“I called her this morning and told her my thoughts.  I explained to her that I really want to do something History related.”

Wow!  I told him I was impressed with him taking control of the situation and contacting her.  

Within 30 minutes of the above conversation, he had talked himself into possibly pursuing an Economics degree.  At that point, I told him he can’t call his counselor every time he changes his mind.  He laughed because he knows how frequently he is doing it.  

Graduation is coming.  He is now looking forward to the festivities involved with it, but he still thinks that growing up sucks.  Gotcha!  It’s happening though.

I will be on the couch with chocolate observing my son as he is getting ready to graduate...and wondering when that little 4 year old boy who came into our lives 14 years ago grew up.