My Year of Lasts

Savoring and surviving closing a life chapter

Alessio's first day of third grade and senior year.

Last month, my one and only child, Alessio, embarked on his last year of high school. Yes, our little boy is a senior—a life milestone he has looked forward to since he started school and one that I’ve—quite frankly—dreaded. Alessio was born six weeks early. He has an innate desire to move forward, sometimes at lightning speed, so this year couldn’t have come soon enough for him.

I, on the other hand, have been very apprehensive about this momentous school year. When Alessio transferred to this 1-12 school in the third grade, we felt like we had finally found our parental tribe and home for the next decade. It is a relatively small, tight-knit community of people with shared values that were absolutely invaluable in his formative years. In elementary and middle school, my husband and I often teared up when we dropped him off and watched him walk away, dressed to meet the future in his uniform tie and dress shoes.

Since the school goes through the 12th grade, high schoolers are omnipresent on campus. I remember looking at the slightly awkward man-child senior boys in the annual plays and Christmas concerts and thinking, “Wow, someday that’s going to be our little boy grown up.” It always seemed so far away. I thought I had so much time to savor the experience and prepare for the inevitable.

This past summer, when his senior paperwork arrived in the mail, it hit me: this was the last time I would get a summer packet from our beloved school. The year of lasts had commenced. (Excuse me while I grab a tissue.) Aghhh. The last welcome-back-to-school night filled with hugs and laughs. The last parent-teacher conferences to hear, “Alessio is such a sweet boy and a joy to have in class, but…” The last Christmas concert with the young ladies in long black dresses and the young men in tuxedo shirts and bow ties. The last spring dance and the cloud of cologne hanging in the air 2 hours after he leaves. And then, graduation. Oh lordy! (Another tissue!)

This year of lasts is overwhelmingly bittersweet, and I’ve started to wonder: How am I going to weather all of the upcoming events without dissolving into a puddle of tears with each one? I definitely need a strategy to subvert wallowing in the sadness that could consume me. Somehow, I need to reframe my thinking about this chapter closing if I’m going to survive and thrive.

Inevitable life chapters
Chapters closing. I’ve endured several of these adult life chapters ending, as many of you probably have as well. Leaving a long-time job. Parents dying. Friends moving away. Though they are part and parcel of aging, these transitions seem to accelerate with each passing year.

Concurrently, my husband and I decided to sell three pieces of furniture we brought home when we closed our office space shortly after the pandemic. They are sentimental items that we couldn’t bear to part with at the time, so they have been gathering dust in our home, but now we have come to terms with letting them go. We purchased them before Alessio was born when we first moved our business out of our home into a studio office space, and they felt like old friends.

I was contemplating why it’s been so hard to sell them. As designers, we greatly enjoy them as well-designed mid-century classics, but they’re more than that. It’s what they signify: a hopeful time in our lives. I was so excited when we acquired them. Not only were they great finds and something I had hoped for, but they were part of an exciting new beginning, the first step in realizing our dreams together.

Gratitude and planning
Relinquishing these extremely sentimental belongings is closing yet another chapter, which is particularly difficult in the year of lasts. But it got me thinking a little deeper about how to stay out of the emotional quicksand, and two strategies occurred to me: gratitude and planning. 

Number one, I will focus on the perfect reframe: gratitude. Instead of being sad that the chapter is ending, I’ll focus on being grateful for having experienced it in the first place. For example, I appreciate how fortunate our family was to have found and become members of a rare school community where Alessio received a foundational faith education centered on invaluable critical thinking that will serve him throughout his lifetime. Those are the aspects I want to keep at the forefront of my mind, so I am more grateful for the chapter than I am sad to close it.

Number two, I’m going to plan. Intuitively, I thought it would be constructive to have something to look forward to and to focus attention on this new chapter…which also speaks broadly to living and aging well. Serendipitously, I came across an article reporting on a study about how people planning trips are happier and more energized than those without planned trips.

The anticipation of a planned trip, simply knowing there is something to look forward to, brings a tremendous sense of joy. Plans also impart a sense of control that helps to make people feel secure. These same notions apply to the unavoidable closing of life chapters, which are often distressing because they are out of our control.

When my husband, Andrea, and I first bought our home, our neighbors were a sweet elderly couple (who we purchased the home from, long story for another time), and the gentleman, Dan, was on the verge of retiring from a long-time job. When we first moved in, he was cordial and helpful, but as time wore on, there was a noticeable shift in his demeanor. We noticed that Dan’s focus slowly contracted to the world within his property line; he didn’t have many outside interests, didn’t enjoy traveling, and rarely socialized…and he became more and more dour and grumbly with every passing year.

The promise of the blank page
I’ve often reflected on how sad Dan’s last couple of years of life were. His diminishing happiness underscored the necessity of starting a hopeful new chapter as one closes. The exhilarating possibilities of a blank page to fill are much like planning a trip; they can give us a comforting sense of control and purpose, which is vitally important as we age.

As my year of lasts is well underway, I’m wistfully (and a little begrudgingly) grateful for each “last” and mindfully shifting my attention to the future. Unlike the last decade, during which we were carried by the parenting current—finding the right school, preparing for the school year, searching for the perfect uniform pants, procuring the Scout outfit and accouterments, and oodles more—now I have to be more deliberate about making plans.

As this school year progresses, I will adopt the mindset of looking forward to the great opportunities that lie ahead for our son, celebrating the young man he has become, and the gift of imagining a new life chapter for my husband and me. In fact, I plan on it.

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