In less than two weeks, we’ll be packing up the car, loading up the last-minute laundry pile, double-checking tools, paperwork, and snacks—and driving our son to start his next chapter. School, career training, life. Whatever you want to call it—it’s happening. It’s good. It’s right.
But it’s also a lot.
He’s ready. We’ve prepared him the best we could—through grace, grit, prayer, and probably more nagging than we care to admit. I know he’ll be okay. I know we will too. But it still hits different when the last one heads out and the house stays quiet.
“Maybe it’s time for just you and me again.”
My husband said that to me the other day.
And he didn’t say it with a heavy sigh or an air of loss. He said it with a soft smile and a hopeful look—like a man who still likes his wife after thirty-some years and thinks maybe now they can get back to the place they were before the kids came along.
We’ve always been “us,” but we’ve also been “the parents” and all that comes with it.
Now?
Now we get to be just us again. And I’ll be honest—it feels a little weird. But also kind of wonderful.
What this part looks like
This part looks like mornings without alarms and school schedules.
It looks like talking to each other without whispering behind a bedroom door or making sure the kids are out of earshot.
It looks like revisiting the people we were before we were everyone else’s everything—and realizing those people have grown and changed, but somehow still belong to each other.
It also looks like a lot of faith.
Because we’re trusting God not just with our son’s future, but with ours too. This part isn’t a pause or an ending—it’s a new beginning. And that means it’s going to take grace (again), grit (again), and probably a few leftover casseroles and prayers (again).
So here we are.
In less than two weeks, I’ll hug my son and try not to sob until I get on the plane.
I’ll think about how far we’ve come.
And I’ll keep reminding myself that this part?
This part is good too.