It was a busy spring for the Ellis family. College graduation for our daughter, state tennis tournament and high school graduation for our son. Many ends, many lasts, many emotions, and much anticipation as to what’s next.

What’s next for our children as they move beyond the relatively safe and structured existences they’ve inhabited for so long? What’s next for my wife and I as we find more and more time left unscheduled with our children’s events? Empty nesters? Isn’t that for old people?

All this seemed so far away for so long, and now, here it is. It all creeps up on you…like ill-fitting underwear, and like such, sometimes you can discreetly wiggle your way out of the discomfort, but often times you have to get your hands dirty.

Our son, Jackson, has been able to wiggle his way out of the various discomforts that come along with being a teenager and a high school student-athlete, and now it’s time for him to get his hands dirty. The adult advice has been plentiful, and even his car has been issuing him a daily reminder that “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”.

Some of those objects that he’s been able to maintain some distance from are now beside him, and they have questions. Questions that only he can answer. We all want the best for our children, we want to see them answer these questions, walk confidently into a bright future, and live a life of purpose and meaning. Is that too much to ask?

Long before the first breath of air was breathed into the “Congratulations Graduate” balloons, Jackson has been fielding the usual questions from the curious and well-meaning adults that want the best for him. Now that the last breath of air has leaked from those balloons, I’m not sure if he’s any closer to answering those questions.

I know he cares and I know it is weighing heavy on his mind, as it is on the minds of many that walked across the stage and into the unknown this spring. What I do know is that he is a genuinely kind and caring person, a gentleman. A humble and good person that may be hesitant to believe that he has the ability to walk confidently into a bright future and live a life of purpose and meaning.

How does one find purpose and meaning in life? Can you find it? Does it need to find you? How does a young person that has had much of their purpose and meaning defined for them the first 18-years of their life create their own definition? Difficult questions.

I suppose the answers lie within and without. We need time within ourselves to explore and discover what the world without needs from us. Often times we also need to change our location in the world to awaken that within that we never knew existed. Who we are, or want to be, sometimes can’t be found where we are. You never know which station you’ll find the music your life can dance to.

It has been said that we don’t find a vocation, a vocation finds us. A calling that finds, and eventually, defines a part of who we are and who our piece of the world needs us to be.

I keep glancing in my son’s mirrors hoping that some of these answers, these objects, are getting closer, but I have to remind myself that what appears to me doesn’t matter. They are not my mirrors, they are not my questions, and nobody likes a backseat driver.

Take the wheel son, and no matter how heavily “Are we there yet?” weights on our minds, your mom and dad will try to relax and enjoy the ride.