Fifth Grade Graduation

"If you love me let me go
If you love me let me go
‘Cause these words are knives and often leave scars
The fear of falling apart
And truth be told, I never was yours
The fear, the fear of falling apart."

 -- "This is Gospel" - Panic! at the Disco

I lifted a heavy cooler containing 80 water balloons into the back of the van, cracking my ankle and straining my back in the process, then mounted the driver's seat to bring my precious cargo to the fifth grade graduation picnic. With a turn of the key, these words blasted out of the radio: "If you love me let me go - o - o."  I was not exceptionally emotional about William's last day of elementary school but the poignancy of the situation struck me. The moms who stood around the edge of the picnic sniffled a little and wiped sweat mixed with tears from under our sunglasses. It's not that the kids are leaving us yet, but that we know now how fast time moves, and how rapidly this day will morph into high school graduation parties. 

I didn't cry about William leaving or hover around the school doors at the end of the day to hear their riotous cheers spill out over the playground, but I did lose it when I said good-bye to one of William's teachers, an amazing woman who has had either Aden or William for the last five years. We've had many conferences together and shared the organization of several service projects for the school, and I'm not sure if our paths will cross often in the future. So I cemented my reputation as an emotional crazy-person by sobbing briefly on her shoulder. Thank God for sunglasses!

William can sleep in today, and Aden and Daniel only have three hours of school to play games and sign yearbooks. We're almost through the intensely packed schedule that has taken us by the necks and dragged us pell-mell through May. Perhaps now I can finally replace the Easter place mats and centerpiece that still decorate our table and update the chore chart from April. I would apologize for my delinquency in posting but if you are familiar with "May - hem" you will understand. Tomorrow marks the start of summer and it's possible that I will have more time - more time to enjoy these kiddos before they grow up and before I really let them go, and then truly fall apart.