The big hair and bangs. The scrunchies. Vanilla Ice, Ice Baby and Pretty Woman. Some pop culture things I remember from my Senior year.

The parties, Senior skip day, spring break, prom and graduation – for some even working your first jobs…all rights of passage for Seniors.

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Since the “safer at home” order I had an intuition this day would come. And even though I have been preparing for it, the news hit me quite a bit harder than I had anticipated today.

School is closed for the remainder of this year.

Senior year for my son and his classmates has become like the show you watched that didn’t get picked up for another season…what happened?! They left me hanging! No closure. It just faded to black…

The kids my son grew up with were born during the time of 9/11. In their Senior year the unforseen and unprecedented global health crisis that is unfolding every day places the cap on the end of their youth. It is like a surreal dream. I know there are SO many sacrificing so much. I keep snapping my thoughts back to this reality and the repeated realization that one person’s problem with this situation pales in comparison with another and we are ALL not alone.

However, today – THIS day – it sinks in hard and I can’t brush it aside. I am going to be sad for my first-born. The things that will not be. The graduation somehow orchestrated or ?? For all the Moms and Dads of the Class of 2020, this pity party is for you and your seniors today. Want an invite?

Tomorrow will be time for the forward-looking hope that something wonderful is on the other side of this unexplainable loss. History is being written for the books right now and generations to come. THIS generation is on the brink of a new way of life, new issues to face and new ways in which to manage them.

I do wonder what my son’s reflections will be on this when he is decades out of high school like his Mom. What lessons learned now will drive where he and his classmates go in the future?

There is some grief I don’t want to overlook or deny. But it’s also my responsibility to make sure that I honor it and let it pass. That is what I would want my son to do so he doesn’t waste a minute being anything less than excited and hopeful for what awaits him around the next corner. The sun will rise (presumably!) tomorrow and we will look forward to the pilot episode of the next chapter. I know in my heart it’s going to be a good one. We may even binge watch.

© Jennifer Scheidt and Titanimom, 2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jennifer Scheidt and Titanimom with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.