Overwhelmed

That title is pretty much all I need to say. I feel overwhelmed. The process of getting a dependent into college, and into a dorm is far more complicated than if it were myself and a billion times worse than getting a child enrolled in fifth grade. It's become more complicated because of everything being electronic. While it is nice to be able to go in and fix things immediately, it's hard to know what the little pixels on the screen are doing, until it's too late. It appears that the FAFSA stuff didn't even count, yet. It needs to count. It better count. Yeah, my son has other financial awards, but the bulk is still going to be the federal grants and the loan. I'm slightly in panic, because it appeared to be smooth until now. Now it seems like each of the various organizations and websites that have to communicate are not speaking to each other. I'm having a slight panic attack over this. Until I know that the Pell and the Stafford will go through, I am not going to be relaxed.

It's no wonder this is eating away at me and causing all kinds of brain goo. I must be kind to myself through the next two weeks. I'm the only one who will be, after all.

My youngest will go to school near my home, now that his brother is no longer nearer his dad's house. This will make the school year seem almost too easy. I've got two more years and two months until my youngest enters his teen years. I better make the most of them. The teen years are not for the faint-of-heart.

Looking back on the first time my firstborn told me he hated me, and the years of never knowing whether he would have a total screaming meltdown in public seem so far away and so much easier than the last couple years. The absolute reliance on me for so much, while psychologically withdrawing and lashing out at me to break away from me is a bigger heartbreak than I expected. He thinks he knows something. He thinks he's got it, now. And he's experienced major disappointment in me, and found me to be human. It's been walking on broken glass and then on eggshells, in turn.

I get the emails to do his financial stuff for college, while he plots and arranges being "on his own" at school. Kid, that's not being on your own. And for all your bravado, you're still relying on me more than you want to look at.

I remember the concerned meeting with the teacher, a counselor and his teacher in kindergarten because he was so quiet and didn't like to participate. I remember his first friend at school, and how he disappeared after a sleepover, where his friend's parents probed him about church and found us lacking in the whole tribal Christian faith thing. I remember how he reacted to the divorce and the final separation. I remember how he'd sneak in and sleep at the foot of my bed. I remember how he cared about his younger brother until this year.

Now he's the cool dude, too cool for family, and pretends like he never liked any of us, and doesn't need us. He's so much different than he was a year ago. He's mean to his brother, he hates anyone pointing out how well he did to graduate two years early from an advanced school, he can only talk about getting away from us all. If I quote a movie or show, he bursts out about how unoriginal I am. If I sing, he immediately insults my singing. Dude, look, I don't even do karaoke, alright? It's just me in my damned car.

Gah. There's no way to prepare for this. No matter what anyone says, the teen years are like a chipper. You go in whole and come out shredded to bits. People keep telling me it'll be over in a few years. It feels like it just goes on and on. At least in the toddler years, the cycles went in months. I hope this doesn't last. It just feels like it's been a really long year. I hated 15, and 16 seems to be just as hard. Worse, actually.

So, yeah, I'm going to give everything I can, navigating websites, filling out all the forms, making sure everything lines up, just to make sure he's got a better future than I ever even dreamed of having. I'll do it in gratitude that I have the opportunity. But my heart will break every time he acts like or says I can't possibly love him or care about him. Dude, you have no idea. None. You really are my heart pulled out of my chest and wandering about in this world away from me.

Yes. I am overwhelmed.