It’s funny how I expect my children to do the things I didn’t do.

Well…..not really “funny”. Weird, maybe. Probably, for a parent, typical.

I was looking up scholarships this morning….and thinking about all the ones I’d have them apply for, and then I thought about my own experience when I was in High School.

I didn’t apply for a bunch of scholarships.

I got a couple….and they were a surprise to me when I got them….but I don’t remember writing any essays or really even trying very hard to get any.

I’m not sure how most of that happened.

Now that I mention it, I don’t really remember trying very hard in general.

I worked hard at some of it, but I don’t think that I was all that focused.

I think that I was more interested in listening to music and doing my job at the construction site…..wearing flip-flops and feeling the sun on my bare feet….running in the Georgia heat….stuff like that.

That’s probably why I majored in Art (with a capital “A”). I could listen to music….and do art. How much focus could it take? (Actually a lot…..blood, sweat and tears….laser. I have to think hard to come up with all that stuff….hard enough, sometimes, to make my head ache.)

So….it’s kind of hypocritical to expect them to be super-focused.

To my happy surprise, though, they’re a lot more directed and focused than I ever was.

My oldest is in an engineering program….studies all the time….and the next in line starts school in the Fall….and he’s been working at getting scholarships….and….working at getting out of (and away from) High School.

They’ll be OK.

What they can’t take care of, I’ll figure out how to help them with.

This scholarship game is a funny one, though.

I think that the real trick is to just show up.

Apply to all of them…..because I will bet that some of them get very few applicants.

I’ll bet that some of them have people sitting in administrative offices somewhere who run down the hall after receiving the request, yelling, “HOLY SMOKES!!! WE GOT ONE!!! SOMEBODY FOUND US!!! GIVE THEM THE MONEY!!!”

That’s the fantasy, anyway.

It’s kind of like finding the money people tell us is buried on the property we bought.

It’s fun to have a fantasy.

I guess that the best thing that I can do is just make sure that I don’t get in their way.

It’s hard enough without me getting in their way, somehow.

(I think that I’ll really hit them hard with the expectation of a Saturday spent applying for every crazy scholarship they can find online….when they get up. It’s still pretty early and I’m awake in the quiet house. That’s what I’ll do first thing this morning…..hammer down on their futures. That’s a good way to spoil a nice weekend.)

We’ll figure this all out.

From my tenuous perch on the wobbly ladder of adulthood, I will monitor their progress, too….and pretend, for their benefit, that I have a real handle on any of this growing up stuff.

You have to think that the tour director knows how to drive the bus.

You have to know something to make it through.