Putting Away My Purple

My son graduates on Saturday. Well, technically, he graduates on Friday, but the ceremony is on Saturday. We’ll line the bleachers of his high school field house to watch a few hundred 17- and 18-year-olds—several dozen of whom we’ve known to some degree since they were in elementary school—take a fully-robed, memorable walk in front of their parents and peers to collect a scroll, shake a hand, flip a tassel from one side of their caps to the other, and enter that (often-elusive-for-today’s-youth) world of adulthood.  In the case of my son’s school, those caps and robes will be . . . purple.

My son will be the first graduate out of my three children. My husband and I started our family very young. We met when I was 19, married just six months after meeting (about four months after we officially began dating), and, before I turned 21, we were blessed with the first of our children. (To save time for those of you doing the math, my son is 18 and will turn 19 in September; I’m 39 and will turn 40 in December; my husband is just shy of 2-years my elder.) When you have children so young, you spend a lot of time learning about life right alongside them, while faking that you actually know what the heck you’re doing so that you can seem assured and in control in front of your kids.

It all begins with paperwork. Nobody ever told me that grown-ups’ lives included so much redundant paperwork! As military veterans, you’d think that my husband and I would have realized that everything requires paperwork . . .

Often In Triplicate . . .

WITH SIGNATURES . . .

AND! WITNESSES! . . .

and nineteen manners for reaching you, your emergency points of contact, and your various insurance providers . . .

in order to confirm said paperwork!

I really detest paperwork. I’m pretty sure I can fairly and honestly state that paperwork is the single worst part of adulthood. Oh sure, there are things that are harder and more emotional. But, you know what makes those harder and more emotional things even worse? MORE paperwork!

Like every responsible parent, paperwork has followed us from our son’s birth all the way to this coming Saturday. Each form and packet taught my husband and me a little bit more about life. Medical paperwork is big early on in life and it carries through. Then, there’s the countless forms required to sign your toddler up for programs in your community, at your church, or through the local libraries and it carries through. (Paperwork never goes away. It’s just added to!) And then? Your child is ready for preschool and from that moment until . . . well . . . maybe graduation? I’ll have to let you know . . . paperwork becomes your life.

Registering for schools or transferring schools is akin to novella writing projects minus the great plots. Insurance information, fundraisers, emergency contacts, fundraisers, medical records, fundraisers, permission slips, fundraisers, bus agreements, fundraisers, volunteer sign-ups, fundraisers, background checks for those volunteer sign-ups, fundraisers, book orders, fundraisers, PTO work, fundraisers, picture day order forms, fundraisers, behavior contracts, fundraisers, photo waivers, just write us a damned check already, usage agreements for:  libraries, science labs, computer labs, art rooms, gyms, and playground equipment, and repeat it all for classes, sports, clubs, extra -curriculars, and please tell us when you’ll be able to work the fundraiser! Even as schools have gone mostly paperless in these last couple of years, (thank you for that, by the way), we still have the countless pages of requirements, but much of it is digital, cluttering my inbox rather than my countertop.

Through it all, we learned a little more about life. Each signature was a step toward a new adventure.

I guess it would be four-years ago that one of the fundraiser letters (included in a packet of probably 50 other papers to read and/or sign), was our “Team Spirit” order form. It’s not that I hadn’t seen these before, but this year, my son would begin a high school journey of kicking it in on cross-country courses and tracks. So it started; I got my first piece of purple. It was a windbreaker. The next purchase was a travel coffee mug which joined us at countless events over the years. I donned my purple whenever he ran.

In his second year of high school, my son’s youngest sister became a part of the junior basketball team sponsored by the school. In fall, I wore purple at cross-country meets . . . we added a purple chair. In winter, it was time to don purple in the basketball stands . . . occasionally the purple blanket would come along as bleacher padding. In spring, we were there at the track meets . . . sometimes with the big, purple umbrella. By the end of the season, we might be lucky enough to put on the short-sleeved purple polo or one of a collection of purple t-shirts.

Purple would be the graduation color.

Except, really, it’s my husband and I who are graduating.

Saturday’s ceremony for my son will be done in a few hours after he puts on his purple. My husband’s and my ceremony began four years ago when we bought our first “Team Spirit” additions. Little by little, as we cheered in stands, and on bleachers, and along the wooded edge of a cross country course, our son was running toward adulthood.  As he graduates, and his sister has chosen a high school of a different hue, we’ll be graduating from our role as the purple cheerleaders, calling not just for winning a race, but for learning to finish strong in life.

Crap. We just didn’t realize that we were being schooled all this time in the school colors! We were being trained to let our children go into life as we were training them to prepare for it! I want back one more race or one more event or one more game. I wonder if our kids realize that their alma maters are ours, too. Do they know that we are on the same team, but as fans and coaches? Do they realize that, when they flip that tassel from one side to the other, they are moving it out of our grasps? They are changing home teams.

After this week, we put away our purple. And, all over the country, other parents are putting away their purples, and their reds, and their blues, and their blacks, and their yellows, and their greens, and their whites, and hundreds of other colors and color combinations. We earned our parenting diplomas. There were classes that we just skated by in. We aced a few and—if  we’re honest—probably failed a few, too. But, here we are. It’s graduation day and time to pass the pen, or the keyboard, as it were, down to the next generation of paper-filler-outers.

I just hope that my son remembers as much as I hated paperwork is how much I loved wearing purple.

Congratulations, graduates, on your many-colored finish lines!