The only constant in life: Change

This is some of the best advice my oldest sister handed down to me as I entered the 8th grade. I've attempted to impart it to my children. I hope it works.
We're back home. We arrived at like 2-something in the morning. It was a much better drive time coming back than when I went up there to get the oldest male child. It took me something like 7 hours start to finish to get up there. I was tired, stressed, and anxious. I took my time, and two naps along the way. I just didn't want to be doing that under those circumstances, but I also left the house extraordinarily late. I wasn't sure if the in-laws told him he had to move back home, and my timing needed to work with other people's sleep schedules. I didn't say much to anyone. Part of that was utter useless exhaustion. Part was my attempt to keep the vitriol out of it. Part was my passive-aggressive way of saying "you people suck". I caught a couple hours sleep but it wasn't easy with the smell of cigarette smoke permeating every inch of the place, and my inability to get warm. I probably could have slept better in the van. I got up, and changed clothes in the van (to avoid contaminating my stuff with ciggy stink). Then took care of school business, which someone was supposed to go sign ONE paper for the school to stow in my son's file till I arrived to withdraw him - and of course they didn't. I was honestly NOT suprised, considering I didn't get any first hand information in all this. I also caught wind of some other forms of deception from someone involved. Karma's a real wench is all I'm going to say. Later, while the nephew cooked dinner, I took my son to say bye to an aunt and a friend. We got back, ate dinner and loaded his belongings. We then left to say bye to the other aunt, uncle and cousin (personally I like them the most favoritist). We got on the road and got home in 4 hours, and I didn't even speed. Random & Frazzled tolerated my incessant, inane yammering almost the WHOLE way home. I took a shower to get the roadtrip and ciggy stink off me. Then I consumed food and went to sleep. Only, that sleep was interrupted by the Beast oversleeping and needing a ride to catch the shuttle bus to his school, and getting Clone to school. She was excited to see big brother. So today was cranky and sort of useless with some productivity. I'm working on a special assignment for the oldest because of his choice of foreign language...German.
I hate that I had to withdraw him in the middle of the year, not quite at the end of the semester, and uproot him suddenly. It was supposed to be different, but I can't control the other parties in this.
I will say that my son has lofty academic goals, and seems to have a different energy about him than when he went to live with MIL. His perspective has shifted because of his circumstances. I don't expect hunky-dorey and easy transitions. But at least he seems willing to navigate the changes. It is, after all, the only constant in life.