Sauced In New York Sometimes the food is in the sauce, sometimes we are
2013 – What an interesting year it has been, full of change and transition. The mantra has often been “with great change comes great opportunity”. Focus on facing changes with an eye to creative resolutions. Keep it positive. Change is good.
Our winter months, early on in 2013, were filled with the upcoming transition of sending our oldest child off to college. Fortunately, she is an athlete: applications were in early and visits took place mostly in 11th grade. Those months are a bit blurry in my mind, but they included the traditional angst on both ends – I’m leaving, let me leave; you need to be independent, oh Lord it’s time for you to go.
Summer came, and transition became the key word on the home and work front. Our president abruptly left us at The College of Saint Rose, and a transition team was set in place to steer the ship through the necessary one year search process. (Read more here.) It had seemed we were sailing smoothly into a brilliant future, then suddenly we were not.
While the summer was marked with uncertainty, once my colleagues and I walked onto campus in August and into our classrooms, it became clear that there was no need for uncertainty. Faculty are the heart of the academic endeavor, and I am blessed to work with colleagues whose primary objective is to teach well, engaging our students in a growth process that should send them out into the world as thoughtful and productive human beings, capable of critical thinking.
At the same time, we became a much smaller household, with just our son, a junior, at home. The grocery bill went up, however. There have been a few major growth spurts over the course of 2013, each accompanied by a continuously and mysteriously emptying refrigerator. As I witnessed as a child too, without an older sibling around, Dennis was able to move into the leading role. He is funny, he is happy to spend time with me in the kitchen, he does not yet have his license. Home life was less about declaring independence, and more about family time, something that may well change in 2014…
We end 2013 with another transition: welcoming home our college student. “Who are you meeting out?” is no longer a valid question, along with “I don’t think I have met his/her parents yet.” It is thrilling to see the dynamic changes and growth in her, occurring in just a few short months, but at the same time it is disconcerting but necessary to allow her the independence appropriate for the age.
Grace and I drove up to the camp last night right around the time the rain was transitioning over to snow. She had offered to drive, and I gladly accepted – my shoulder is still quite sore, and holding the steering wheel sets me up to need a whole lot of Tylenol. As she plowed ahead into the transitioning weather conditions, I asked myself when it happens that you stop watching the speedometer, or the outside temperature (it’s dropping, we are going through a mountain pass, that is snow in the headlights). I had just driven my own mother around over the holidays. When did she stop worrying?
Or is she still worrying?
Happy 2014 readers. Change is good! May 2014 see those great opportunities come to fruition!
