My baby’s gone away

Yesterday my 18 year old son, who is also our youngest child, went off on holiday with ‘the lads’ for the first time.  He was assailed by last minute nerves which was very upsetting for everyone concerned.  One tends to forget that just being over 6′ tall doesn’t make you a ‘grown-up’.  Travelling alone is undoubtedly one of those rites of passage and it is important for us all to do these things. It is tough to do, and tough to watch.

Doing new things is always challenging on many different levels:-

• You don’t know how to do it, as you have no experience.  Theory and practice can be a million miles apart
• You can feel frightened by all the things you don’t know.  All sorts of nameless fears can assail you.
• You can be confused by feeling excited and scared at the same time, torn between conflicting emotions
• You don’t know whether to run forward into the experience or away from it
• You don’t want to seem foolish or weak  to others

New things are challenges, but they always take us to new places that allow in new ideas and feelings.  I hope that if you are facing a new challenge today you can find the courage and the support you need to embrace it… Good Luck!

“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”   Paulo Coelho

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards”

Tags: new things, rites of passage, travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 09:13 and is filed under Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.