From the days of kicking his Montessori teacher because he wanted to go home to middle school detentions and suspensions (ask me about THAT sometime) to figuring it all out, he made it. We made it. 

Banner week around here. Callum turned 18 on Wednesday. His gift from us was a collection of Norwegian black metal cassette tapes. Callum at 18 is me at 18 is Matthew at 18 is his very own self at 18. A mashup of two weirdos who found each other in a bookstore and made a new weirdo. The evening before his birthday I told him it was his last few hours as a child. That got a good eye roll. Okay, so maybe not technically a child anymore but definitely still a teen. Whew.

Then he graduated high school on Saturday. 

I didn’t know what to do with myself all day. It felt weird to do all the normal Saturday things. I kept busy cleaning to give my feelings something to do. I texted my BFF, whose kid was also graduating from C’s school, woohooing that we made it. I texted my neighbor to check in on her big feelings, happy to find she was also busy cleaning. Then Callum handed me a letter thanking us for all we’ve done for him. And thus began the Great Crying of 2024. Grateful it’s over. Grateful to have sat through graduation next to my best friend of 32 years (and her parents, including her mother, that same Montessori teacher he kicked at age 3). Grateful we all survived.

You know how Diane Court gives that valedictorian speech in Say Anything and says, “I’ve glimpsed our future and all I can say is… go back”? It only gets a laugh out of her dad. Callum’s attitude at the end of high school was very much “flick a match over his shoulder at that place and never look back.” Diane is wrong. I’ve glimpsed the future and all I can say is, go get it. High school? Go back? No way. Everything good and wild and unexpected is in that future. Go get it. 

Sunday he gets on an airplane to head west to meet up with a friend for a two week road trip. I will now spend two weeks cosplaying as someone without a debilitating anxiety disorder. Having lost my dad to a brutal car accident, I have huge anxiety about even just day-to-day driving. I hate when Callum is in a car with anyone other than us. He will have a wonderful adventure. I will probably double down on all my meds. 

Someone recently said to me that their therapist had once said that you could have a relationship with your child or you could be right. Right about whatever—the current argument, that your expectations are reasonable, that your way is the only way, that you know best. And I’ll tell you what. I’ve spent 18 years working hard to let go of my intense love of being right. I am stubborn and rigid and ruled by to-do lists and achievements. I fucking love to be right. But I love my kid more. I love our relationship more. And god knows when he leaves this fall there is so much I am going to want to be right about, so much of what I’d do or what I’d say that I’ll want to impose on him. And starting with this trip, this incredibly unplanned “we’ll go wherever and sleep wherever” trip, we are entering the golden age of me just shutting up and letting him live his life. Will I still offer far too much unsolicited advice? Sure. I’m still me. But do I need to work harder than ever to just zip it and watch his life unfold how he wants it to? Yep.

Good thing I love a project. 

So. 18. Graduated. Off on a road trip. Wonderful, terrifying times.

Let’s dance it out with Arcade Fire and “Unconditional I.” Because parenting has kicked my ass all over the place nearly every day of these 18 years, but my love for this headstrong, independent, clever kid? Unconditional. 

“A lifetime of skinned knees

And heartbreak comes so easily

But a life without you

Would be boring for someone like me.”