My car has the scent of new carpet in it.  I have a four foot by six foot rug rolled up in back. It's for Hayden's dorm room. It was my idea.  An area rug wasn't on his list. 

 I told myself I wasn't going to write about this. I said when I wrote about his graduation that it would be the last sappy post I wrote regarding the matter of my son entering adulthood and leaving his room; his room which is custom-designed with the desk he built, book-ended with two rusty old lockers disguised by silver spray paint.......

his room...littered with gaming magazines and the chair railing beside his bed plastered with chewed gum that prevented him from ever waking up with gum in that beautiful head of hair.  

 

I told myself I wouldn't subject Facebook to another cliche post about "moms who are sad that their babies are growing up" and how "time really does fly".  

But I lied. 

I also told myself I was going to handle this "moving off" thing like a champion and even took Hayden shopping for dorm stuff on the Saturday of tax-free weekend. 

That didn't stop me from menacingly shaking my fist at the friend I saw in Wal-Mart when she said "I know what YOU'RE doing..." 

 "Don't bring it up," I said, as if my ignorance with a cart of full dishes, cleaning supplies and "all things leaving" could equal bliss. 

I know he's leaving. 

I was reminded when I came home last week to him packing boxes (without even asking me first!). 

So since the reality of his leaving is sinking in like a ton of bricks, I'll face it like every other mom and dad who are facing it and like those who faced it last year or twenty years ago. 

I'll cry in my bedroom when nobody's watching. I'll help box up the new toilet brush I bought him and the Lysol wipes.....and the blue Dawn (the only dish washing soap that helps oily ducks). 

I'll teach him how to sort clothes and remind him that he can call if he's not sure which wash setting to use. 

I'll get the SHSU Mobile App on my phone and look (and maybe memorize) the upcoming activities on campus for the next few weeks. And I'll give him advice on which activities will be helpful like the one where the upper classmen offer you a Coke and show you where your classes will be. 

I'll drive around (for the next week anyway) with his new area rug in my car and smell its newness which fills me with an equal portion of sadness and excitement. 

I got that carpet with the notion that the bare new floors on which his feet will tread might need a soft place. As his mom, I've always thought myself to be his soft place to land, even in times of tough love and discipline. 

I'll still be his soft place. But this soft place won't be the same as my cushy hip he used to rest on. I carried that boy on my hip until his legs hung past my knees. He's outgrown the soft place as we know it. 

I'll still send him more texts than he wants. Home and chocolate chip cookies and milk (all the milk he wants) will be here waiting for any chance he gets to come back. He'll ALWAYS have his place here. I'll go there too. 

But he has places to go and a new soft place to land. It's not just four foot by six foot. God has reminded me already that his presence goes where I can't. He has reminded me of this more times than I can count- on the kids' big test days and days where they face challenges I can't help them with (not including prayer). 

God is the soft place.  He has always been. 

It's just that a mom's soft place has a way of being imposing, so much so, that God can be hard to notice. 

My prayer is that Hayden will discover the shelter he has in his Father. I've got some discovering to do too. I pray that I will not just know, but experience the peace that comes through faithful prayer and faith-fuller answers from God.

The Lord is near. 

To Hayden

And to me

To those of you who moved your kids off last weekend and to those kids who may be filling up boxes as we speak (without even telling you). 

God is our soft place with dimensions much bigger than what you and I can fit in the back of our car. 

Change always has something to teach us. 

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4

• I apologize for any fist-shaking you may have encountered or encounter in the days to come. I apologize for the public tearfulness that's bound to happen on a lonelier church pew in the Sundays to come. I know THAT I KNOW, I'm not alone.