End of high school means in an instant, the routine changes

Does your family thrive (or at least function) because of routines? Does everyone know the kids go to school when Mom goes to work; that weekends begin with chores and end with play? That weekday nights are tag-team relays between school, work, homework and whatever activity each kid is participating in?

Days go on, family routines get tweaked, changed up a little but, essentially, for at least 13 years, daily routines are just that: routine.

But then, something happens and the routine ends.

We know it’s coming, right? Kids grow up, and when they do our parental focus twists slightly but our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly routines twist greatly.

For the last six years, our middle child, Luke, has identified as a football player. His life — our life —has focused on this sport. After school, before school, Monday nights, Friday nights, Saturday mornings, even when he wasn’t suiting up he was building-up strength, endurance and a bunch of other athletic things that are foreign to me, but year-long football was a part of our routine.

And then, last week, it stopped.

In five days Luke went from Football Playing High School Student, to College Focused Almost Graduate.

On a recent Friday night, a final playoff game took football out of our routine and he was left with a wardrobe of sporty T-shirts, a lot of strength, and a knee with a future, old football injury.

Saturday, I washed his uniform for the last time and two days later the bag of stinky gear left my foyer, never to appear again.

The day after his last game we took his (freshly laundered) uniform shirts to his senior portrait session; Tuesday we toured his number one choice college campus. By the time he donned a T-shirt acquired on that visit, football was a thing of his, and our, past.

Just like that.

The week reminded me of when he was born. For nine months I cared for him, lugged him around, fed him…but he didn’t feel like a reality and our routine didn’t change until his birth. Then — just like that —change.

Luke was our second kid so we weren’t overwhelmed with baby-care doubt, didn’t worry if we were going to hurt him when we put him in his car seat, heck, we knew HOW to put him in his car seat. Thanks to his older sister, by the time he was in our arms we knew how to take care of him. But his birth was different than hers and it made our family routine different, too.

That’s when I learned that kids are all the same except that they are all different and that never changes.

His transition from high-shooler to college-bound teen was a different experience than when his sister went through it a couple of years ago.

She walked off the football field after her last marching band performance and was melancholy at most; he walked off the field in tears.

She had her senior portrait session with different outfits in different locations thanks to a Pinterest board full of inspiration styles. He gave me a pair of pants to iron that morning, brought his girlfriend instead of a change of clothes, left the styling to others and never left the studio.

He is choosing a college because he knows what path to take; she was choosing a college because she had no idea what path to start down.

This new change to our son, and to our routine, is different than the last time this happened, but the underlying feeling is the same: a long time ago yesterday our routine began and in five days it changed forever.

Just like that.　

This story was originally published November 8, 2016 at 4:32 PM with the headline "End of high school means in an instant, the routine changes."