When You Know, You Know

Today, I'm taking a breath. I'm planning to take this day to take it slow. We've done the spring break whirlwind tour of colleges with our family. We survived! Actually, we had fun. Yes, two parents and two teenagers in the car for a week...and we laughed. 

Maybe the success of the trip was that we had low expectations. At the start of the trip, one of the kids suggested he was being held hostage on our college visit tour. We looked forward to the hunt for colleges. My husband and I are catching on....it's really going to happen. Our first child will be going to college in another year. We have finally ackowledged that the time is here. Our lives passed before our eyes as we flipped through the college books and maps to plan our route in quest for the perfect fit for our little girl who knows what she wants. It's time. We just need to find the right fit for the college and the girl. I think it will be just like when I met my husband, you know when you know. She will know.

Sometimes I think our teenage children are the same kids they were as kindergartners. Well, not the same kids, just the same personalities! All of those little smiles, twinkle in their eyes, free expression and spirit still show up at times. While a bit more refined and developed, I do think that same spirit shines through.

As a babysitter once said of my older brother a gazillion years ago,"oooh, this child got the devil in him!" Though she meant it in the nicest way...really. That was the brother who took risks...bought the motorcycle, went to Woodstock, moved to California and back and started his successful business. That devil done him well!

My husband always got in trouble for taking things apart...a treasured stop watch, a clock or a bicycle. Yet, he always put them back together without missing a trick. Today, he's successful in sales and works with engineers to help them design products to perfection. He takes things apart and puts them back together...for a career.

I loved to write. I wrote books for my mother at Mother's Day. My best projects in school were writing. Of course I added artwork, perhaps for brownie points? I wrote long letters to my grandmother. I wrote lists. I put together collages of family photos with travelogues. I wrote long stories about invented characters like Clementine, Mrs. Wallingford and Mrs. Punkwardsly. Wallingford obviously created on the long drive from Long Island to Grandma's in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I write blogs today and lots more.

Selling was always a part of my life. I can track my start in sales back to my first lemonade stand, my own indoor tag sale in the basement of our home....with merchandise tagged and priced, displayed on our ping pong table! I moved on to bigger and better outside sales after that....going door to door selling Girl Scout Cookies. My career at Saks 5th Avenue and Brooks Brothers was buying fine jewelry and fine clothing. I still do buying and selling...on eBay...it keeps me happy doing what I love!

So, as our kids discuss possible college majors at large schools, small schools or in between schools, I look in amazement when I hear their rationale. The puzzle pieces fit. All of them come together...slowly and steadily...it all makes sense. Years ago when we had no lemonade in the house, our daughter began selling string cheese...does that lead her to a career in sales or something extremely creative? We'll wait and see.