Fish and Edwin McCain

I am joining up with MannLand5 at Things I Can't Say today.

Earlier this week I dropped my fourteen year old son off at Freshman Orientation.

Wow.

Just yesterday he was a tiny baby. Ok he was never tiny. He weighed ten pounds when he was born. AND it wasn't yesterday. It was last night. Yesterday I was in high school. It seems I fell asleep and woke up nearly forty with a high school aged son.

I digress.

My aging is for another post.


I had to ponder his enrance into high school for a while and then I had some down to earth concise advice for my son. Concise because he doesn't listen long.


Here is what I told him about high school. Feel free to pass this along as your own advice to your own kid if needed. And if your family is weird like ours.


1. I met my best friend in the world when I was 12. She is my best friends to this day. Be careful who you meet. You may have them forever. (If you play your cards right.)


2. Upper class boys will date freshman girls. Do not let this make you think you have any chance at all with an upper class girl. Junior and senior girls will NOT date freshman boys.


3. You are going to make mistakes. Because of that you are going to struggle at times. I am going to let you. It isn't because I don't love you. It because there is only one way to get stronger in life. The one way is to struggle.

4. People will tell you that high school is the best years of your life. Don't listen to them. High school is great. It also sucks. It IS however, the only time in your life people will excuse your stupidity because you are young. Don't do anything that will ruin the rest of your life and remember that you still have your WHOLE life to do fun things. Trust me you will still want to drink and have sex and go to clubs and watch rated R movies when you are actually are old enough to do those things legally and appropriately.

5. Your life is not a race. There is no prize for the person who gets the first car, or the first girlfriend. You can't decide in your thirties you wasted your childhood and try to go back and do it again. It doesn't work that way. Take your time and do it right the first time.

5. Always remember Ty - I love you like no one else in this world. You are a gift that I never deserved. You have been a truly awesome person since you were a baby watching me trying to raise you without a clue as to what I was doing, constantly flashing those fat, deep dimples at me. There is no other person like you in the world. I am so proud to see that you have become your own man and you seem so comfortable with yourself. You can come to me with any triumph or any problem. I can't always save you and I won't always know what to do or say, but I always care. I am the, "greatest fan of your life." I can't wait to see what you do next.



I got a little mushy there at the end. I am just a tad overwhelmed. Fourteen years flew by and I can't even imagine the speed at which the next four will fly by. I won't blink.