Entry 5

So much to unpack over the past few days...I really should have written an entry earlier.

This weekend we dropped my son off to University for the start of his Freshman year (yes, it starts late September). The drop-off went amazingly, with a mix of pride, joy, fun and freedom. We've so loved having him and his cohorts around, not just our son, but his friend group have brought us so much joy over the years. And now, it is time to make space for new things and the freedom this brings.

So, I'll start by sharing a few of the things my son learned:

1. Keep track of your wallet, seems like it's far too easy to loose a wallet in your backpack ...hah! Yes, he thought he left it at the hotel that first night and later found it hidden exactly where he had placed it in his backpack.

2. Moving to the next chapter can feel really good if it's aligned with your purpose. Ok, so this is one I think we both learned over the weekend. He loved the feel of campus and wanted to find the practice room right away (he's a music major), shortly after we left he found an open hallway with a piano and practiced. We are super proud of him for balancing his social inclinations with his desire to practice and a genuine desire to improve and keep growing.

The drive home with my wife was also super fun, we enjoyed talking about both of our future ventures, plans for transforming the home, general observations along the road, the human driver of change and many other things (it's a 7 hour car ride each way). We also had quite the entertaining stop at a business Costco to fill up on gas and late evening coffee to fuel the long drive about an hour in.

That first day back felt great, the two of us got in a workout together and we each enjoyed our newly separate office spaces after struggling to share an office and dealing with concurrent call/conference schedule conflicts for the space, our dinner conversation and walk was filled with hope. I'm very much enjoying the openness, using the lower portion of my sons room (now cleared of all clutter) for my new office space.

During this part, I'd say the two of us reinforced lesson 2 above, next chapters can feel amazing.

Today... was a different story. While each of us had a great day, I somehow triggered an insecurity in my wife. It's an insecurity we both knew about, so share some joint responsibility for. Had I taken some extra time and thought about it, I would have realized that a trigger was pending. The incident felt (and still feels) very trivial to me, and the whole interaction felt like a repetition of old patterns we're both trying to let go of but somehow weren't can't. The learning? Despite our best intentions, old patterns can take time to restructure. Yeah, I know this is kinda cryptic but I want to try and keep this time to 15 minutes and I'm already way over, maybe I'll pick this thread back up tomorrow and expand.

That's all for now.

Mark