Dear G,
Yesterday you turned 19. We celebrated with dinner at Oriental House and treats from a local panaderia.
So many things have changed from a year ago.
At that time, you were working a co-op job so arriving for classes at 7:30 and cutting out at 11:30 to either work or come home and work on your extra classes to graduate in December. You were applying to college. You were very done with high school.
You learned a lot from working for a full year, about how businesses run, about workplace drama and employment aggravations, about the type of job you would want to do over the long-term (not something where you sweat).
Since you weren't in school during the spring, you participated in "Mom's Life Skills Semester" whereby you learned how to cook and be a sous chef, cutting vegetables and helping prep meals. You learned how to do your own laundry and clean the bathroom.
What a difference a year makes; what a difference some six weeks make.
You have adjusted pretty well to college, although the engineering math class has proved a pain in the butt for you, for me, for dad, for anyone who has to listen to you complain about it. And it has been the cause of your first clarifying moment of young adulthood: finding out what you thought you might want to do is, in fact, not what you want to do.
Now your dad didn't experience that feeling much until much later, after he had completed his degrees when he was unhappy in his job and wondered what might have been. Maybe he should have gone to medical school?
I, on the other hand, never really landed on whatever it was I was definitely going to do. I only declared a major during second semester junior year because they school made me. I decided based on what I had enough credits for, which were classes I just enjoyed taking and did well in: english and economics. Even now in my 50s, I don't do any one thing but dabble in things I like that give me flexibility.
So in addition to just learning how to do college, you're learning about how you prefer to learn. You're learning that you don't like a super fast pace. You're learning that it is ok to have one maybe sorta idea of what you might be interested in and then deciding that path isn't right.
You've been learning how to handle your own medical appointments and prescription refills. How to take your car for oil changes. How to manage your own checking account.
Because of your sensititives, I worried about how you would adjust to preschool. And then I worried about how you would adjust to elementary school, and then middle school, and then high school. But you've done fine every time. So I decided not to worry about college.
And you've proven that I don't have to worry.
You are bright and inquisitive. You are responsible and risk-averse. If someone shows you how to do something, you pick it up quickly. And if you need help, you know that you can come to me and dad (or your big sis, who is proving invaluable because of her experience at the same college), and we will try to steer you in the best direction.
But most importantly, you are learning that you can adapt. You don't like change and never have, but in the past year instead saying something like "I don't like it" when something changes, you say "I don't like it, but I will adjust."
And if there is ever a mindset to carry through the peaks that feel too high to climb and valleys that feel too low to survive, that is it.
Your dad and I are both so proud of the man you are becoming, but we have always loved the essence of you that remains the same since you were a child.
Forever,
Mom
