The Next Chapter

Tomorrow we will get up early and drive you off to college. The car is mostly packed, except for some last-minute items you’ll grab in the morning.

I’ve been thinking about time a lot in recent days. Not in an abstract way, but in a very concrete sense. This website has been chronicling your journey since before you could hold your head up, and today I found myself scrolling through years of posts like flipping through a diary that spans your entire life.

There’s the announcement of your arrival in 2007, when I was so new to fatherhood that I was still figuring out how to hold you properly. Your first Father’s Day, when you were barely a month old and I was already marveling at how completely you’d changed everything. Then years of football games, dude’s days, graduations, milestones both big and small. All of it archived here, a digital scrapbook of watching you grow from that tiny infant into the young man you are today heading off to study journalism.

As you head into this next chapter, I want to share some thoughts – not as the guy who’s been writing about your life for eighteen years, but as someone who cares deeply about how the next eighteen turn out.

Be yourself. This might be the last time in your life you get a completely clean slate. Nobody at Penn State knows the Elliott from high school or the Elliott from middle school or the kid who used to catch snowflakes on his tongue. You get to decide who you want to be, how you want to show up, what parts of yourself you want to emphasize. That’s both liberating and terrifying, but lean into the liberation. The world needs your particular brand of thoughtfulness and curiosity.

Try new things. College is basically a four-year experiment in being human, and the best experiments involve trying things you’ve never done before. Take that dance class. Join that club that sounds interesting but weird. Order something off the menu you can’t pronounce. Say yes to invitations that make you a little nervous. Great discoveries happen when you venture outside your comfort zone.

Find your people. You’re going to meet hundreds of people in the next few months, and you don’t need to be friends with all of them. But pay attention to the ones who make you feel more like yourself, not less. The ones who laugh at your jokes and challenge your ideas and seem genuinely interested in what you have to say. Some of the most important relationships of your life might start in a dorm hallway or a dining hall line. Choose wisely – you become who you hang out with.

Call your mother. And not just when you need something. She’s going to miss you. Hearing your voice — not just reading your texts – means more than you know. Call when something good happens. Call when something frustrating happens. Call when nothing much is happening at all. And yes, call me too.

We have your back. This one is important: independence doesn’t mean isolation. There’s going to come a moment – maybe several moments – when you’re overwhelmed or confused or just need someone to remind you that you’re capable of handling whatever you’re facing. Lean on the core four. That’s what we’re here for. Not to solve your problems, but to remind you that you have the tools to solve them yourself. And if you don’t have the tools yet, we’ll help you find them.

Have fun. But not too much fun. You know what I mean.

As I write this, I keep thinking about that first Father’s Day post when you were barely a month old. I wrote about how surreal it felt to suddenly be responsible for this tiny person, how the weight of fatherhood was both overwhelming and motivating. Eighteen years later, that feeling hasn’t gone away – it’s just evolved. Now instead of protecting you from falling off the changing table, I’m watching you prepare to launch yourself into the world.

The difference is that now I have eighteen years of evidence that you’re going to be just fine. More than fine. I’ve watched you navigate challenges with thoughtfulness and grace. I’ve seen you stand up for what you believe in. I’ve witnessed you treat people with kindness and respect. I’ve watched you pursue your interests with genuine passion.

Tomorrow we’ll jump in the car and make the drive to State College. We’ll carry your boxes up to your room, help you get settled, and then – probably after lingering longer than you’d prefer – we’ll drive home to a house that feels a bit smaller. But this is the way it is meant to be.

Now I’m handing the metaphorical pen to you. You’re the author of the next chapter in this story that started eighteen years ago and I can’t wait to watch you write it.