After spending part of the afternoon catching up with a long-time colleague and friend (one of her sweet kitties pictured above), I came home and noticed a letter addressed to my younger son in our pile of mail. His elementary school was scrawled as the return address in the obvious penmanship of a child. I figured it was a nice college send-off note from his little orchestra “buddy.”

But then Tanner got home and opened the letter.

The letter was indeed from a child.
My child.
It was a letter that Tanner had written to his future self when he was eleven years old — an assignment from a teacher who had filed it away and mailed it to him this week. A week before leaving for college. The Tanner from seven years ago asked himself questions about friends and teachers, wished him luck with college. After Tanner read the note aloud, we both sat in stunned silence. On the spectrum that ranges from super cool to cruel & unusual, this note falls somewhere in between. I loved being reminded of how far my extraordinary child has come and how proud I am of him, but it was a tough reminder that life has changed for my little family. And just for this afternoon, I gave myself permission to cry and throw a pity party about it. Okay, and next weekend when I drop him off in his new zip code, I’ll give myself permission to cry some more. But then I’m going to focus on the wonderful things that this next chapter holds for all of us. Life will go on and blessings will continue.