Everybody's moving

I was gazing about at shul this morning, and I noticed the absence of the population of seventeen and eighteen year olds. This is the age of my eldest daughter. We took her to college last week, as I suspect other parents traveled with their adolescents to seats of learning across the States. Where once she sat beside me every Shabbat, she today settled in her seat somewhere else and I was, alas, alone. Even my younger daughter, who would in subsequent weeks share the bench with me, today attended another shul for another Bat Mitzvah celebration; I sat alone. As did all the parents of college-aged people. The daughter of another dear friend—the child only a high school junior—leaves home tomorrow to finish high school in another city. I guess that I am happy for the child, and sad for the community, but today all I felt was alone. My friend entered the entered, noted my presence, and said with sympathy, “You look sad!” I responded, “I am!” I projected my sadness outward onto the room, and prayed with a heaviness throughout services.
I did not today appreciate the eternal change of generations, though I saw the next one run joyously about in all of the space now opened. Dylan says, “Everybody’s moving, if they’re not already there/Everybody’s got to move somewhere.” I agree, but I don’t have to always like it, and right now, I don’t.
Sometimes when someone else moves, I realize how stationary I have become. Everybody’s got to move somewhere. Even me.