Onward into our new life

That's a very dramatic post title, much more dramatic than life seems these days. And yet it's absolutely true. High school is over, K-12 education is over, and our new life has begun. So far, I am not loving it. But we shall see.

The New Vista high school graduation was yesterday and we watched it online to see the last of the twins' kindergarten classmates walk across the stage in caps and gowns. I think there were 5 former classmates that we saw. I'm still puzzled about what happened to some of the others, though. Not counting the twins, there were 5 former elementary school classmates who graduated from Boulder High, and 16 from Fairview. So, including the twins that's (2 + 5 + 5 + 16) 28 kids total, out of 42 or so. As for the other 14, we know where some of them went, moved to Aurora or Arvada or Englewood or Crested Butte. Some of them we didn't really know, and so they've completely disappeared for us. But a few, I'd say three or so, we were expecting to see at one of these graduations and they weren't there, weren't listed in any program. We know all three of them started high school in Boulder, but they didn't seem to finish. I actually watched the graduations for Arapahoe Ridge high school (for nontraditional students) and Boulder Universal (the online school for kids who can't hack in-person school), but none of these three showed up there. So maybe they moved, maybe they didn't graduate, who knows?

Two of them were boys who got in trouble all the time (the third was a girl with a flaky home life). One of the boys was Teen A's best friend in kindergarten, and he and Teen A (Kid A at the time, of course) got sent to the principal's office more than once that year, worrying me terribly. He showed up at Boulder High a couple of years ago, in one of Teen B's classes, missed a lot of class, and then seemed to vanish. The other boy, we thought had gone to New Vista, but he wasn't at the graduation. We think his parents may have gotten divorced. Not sure. And the girl -- she was smart and talented, but her home life, hmm. Anything could have happened.

I know we are very lucky that Teen A and Teen B graduated, that they didn't get in more trouble than they did. I worked hard to make that happen, but I know some of the other parents did too. Some of it really was luck.

Two years ago, Teen B was invited to a graduation party. A Hispanic girl that he knew from his math class was graduating and she invited him. He sent me some pictures of it: enormous purple and gold balloons that said 2024, a big cake, tons of other food. The family lived in a mobile home park, and I think the party may have been in a tent outside their mobile home. Nothing fancy, in other words. But the party was fancy! Oh my goodness. At the time I remember thinking, oh no, I'm going to have to put on something like that too. And of course I didn't. 

But other people filled in for me! The twins received so many cards and so much cash! I almost couldn't believe it. I felt sort of bad about sending out announcements. I definitely did not want that to be a cash grab for the twins. They have money from social security. But they were delighted by the presents, so I guess I just need to step back and say thank you. Actually, I need to encourage the twins to write thank you notes to all these nice people. And then I can step back. 

Stepping back is going to have to be kind of metaphorical for a while, though, since my left knee is giving me even more trouble than before. We had some great rainstorms on Monday and Tuesday of last week (snowstorms on I-80 and I-70, interfering with my sister's drive home!), but on Wednesday after dinner I decided I could go for a short walk. I got maybe five houses down the street when my knee started hurting terribly. I tried to go farther... no, big mistake. A woman had just gotten into her car a few houses ahead of me, and I felt as though I shouldn't cross the street and head home until she took off. I looked behind me, and there was a woman a few houses back with a dog, so I felt as though I shouldn't just turn around and retrace my steps because I'd run into her. All of this was nonsense -- I could certainly have done either thing. Finally I crossed the street and walked back toward home, but the pain got worse and worse. I stopped every few feet to rest. While walking, I waved my arms, which seemed to help a little but probably made me look like a crazy person. I thought, should I call Rocket Boy? But how ridiculous, to ask for a ride when I'm four houses from home. 

Anyway, I made it home, took a lot of pain pills, and Thursday morning I emailed my doctor. The triage nurse called me and said my doctor was out that day, but she would talk to her on Friday. Friday morning I got a call from Boulder MRI! So I'm going to have an MRI of my knee this coming Wednesday. Meanwhile I'm hopping around, sometimes on the crutches Rocket Boy got me at a thrift store on Thursday. I've discovered that I can walk (with or without crutches) as long as the left leg is completely straight. If I bend it a little, the pain is excruciating when I put weight on it. But I can bend my knee just fine if I'm sitting down, i.e., not putting weight on it. I don't know what this means. Is this just more problems with my supposed Baker's cyst? Or is something more serious wrong, for instance with the meniscus? Will I have to have surgery? Would physical therapy help? I just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, the weather has been so lovely, alternating rain and sunshine. Everything is greening up like crazy. I want to go for walks! But all I can do is hobble. 

Despite the knee problem, I made a list of summer goals/plans.

1. Help Teen B prepare for his driving test. If he fails, either sign him up for more lessons, or just get him an ID and forget about the license for now.
2. Apply for passports for Teen B and me (Teen A and Rocket Boy got theirs last year).
3. Plan our trip to California, around July 20th. This is very unclear right now, due to my knee, but we need to keep thinking about it.
4. Prepare the kids for college: attend orientations as needed, encourage them to register for classes, buy supplies for Teen B's dorm room, encourage Teen B to buy himself a new laptop, etc. 
5. Teach them independence: laundry, banking, etc.
6. Clean and reorganize the kids' mess of a room
7. Work on the files and piles in the desk room
8. Sign Teen A up for flying lessons if he still wants them (I think he does)
9. Convert my blogs to books before Google accidentally deletes them.
10. Take Teen B's clarinet to the music store to be refurbished, in case he wants to play it next year
11. Continue working on the yard 
12. Write thank you notes! 

I know there will be more things to add to the list, but these twelve things are what I thought of off the top of my head. 

We've already started working on the list. Yesterday, Teen B and I practiced driving, his first practice in over a year. He drove us to the Starbucks near Walmart, and back again. He actually did really well, after a bad start which involved thinking he'd turned the engine on when he hadn't, and backing down the driveway trying to put the brakes on which weren't responding because the engine wasn't on. Fortunately no one was walking by right then, otherwise we would have killed them.

I think he still needs to practice parking, so we might work on that tomorrow or Tuesday. His driving test is Thursday.

So, yeah, that's kind of where things stand. Wait to see if I'm going to need surgery -- if not, we could think about scheduling Rocket Boy's shoulder surgery. Arrrggghhhh! We are falling apart! Getting older is such a pain. But we keep going. 

Last night, as we were driving home from having dinner in Longmont, we were talking about an old friend of Rocket Boy's, Ray Harding, who we hadn't heard from in many years. I said, as I always do, "I think he's dead." And then it occurred to me that I could look him up on findagrave. Long story short, I found him. He died in 2012, in a little nothing town in Iowa where he had an old house. He was only 66, but the last time we saw him (which we think might have been in 2006, when he was 60), he was in pretty bad shape. Just no money, no one to look after him. 

We have some money, we have health insurance, we look after each other. Every day we get to wake up is a good day, yes?  

So, the week ahead. Monday is Memorial Day, so Rocket Boy has it off, thank goodness. He needs another day to sleep late. Tuesday, Teen B and I both have dentist appointments. Wednesday is my MRI. Thursday is Teen B's driving test. I don't know how all these things got scheduled during the same week. The week after that is completely blank. But I suppose it will fill up. 

My niece said recently, in an email, "What a transition it will be to reclaim more of your emotional/mental energy for yourself."

Well, yeah. Someday. Not quite yet! But maybe gradually it will start to happen. In the fall?