This whole thing of releasing kids into the universe should be easier by now.  After all, parts of it are so much easier:   we are not ingénue parents going to our first college to drop off our first kid; we don’t take long, extensive notes at Orientation sessions; we smoothly navigate college websites. And we are no longer intimidated by the process of packing enough stuff to make sure she has all she needs.  We know there is always the U.S. Mail.  Most of all, we no longer stay up late, worrying that our child might be homesick—or worrying more when she isn’t. We know that, either way, there is nothing we can do about it.  Not a damn thing.

 But that’s part of what makes this whole process hard, every single, damn time:  there is nothing we can do about anything any more.  Once again, one of our children—in this case, our daughter, Becky,  has stepped over the threshold that takes her out of our home, out from under us, into her own world.  We may still be here to provide financial—and occasional emotional—support, but, really, our work is done.  As the colleges love to point out these days, she is on her own now, making her own choices, setting her own curfew (or not), and we won’t even hear about it unless she chooses to tell us.  No helicoptering allowed! 

Becky with her sisters at high school graduation

So, it’s damn hard.  First of all, there is the big, gaping hole that one person’s absence creates in a family.  Secondly, there is the emptiness of rooms once occupied by Becky.  But, worst of all, there is the suddenness of it all.  In one breath,  you have moved from waking up at night and feeding a baby to pushing that baby out the door.  Overnight, you have gone from soccer practises and piano lessons, in a land where time stands still, to this strange, alien planet where kids become grownups and function on their own. Overnight, you’re supposed to make that dramatic, sudden shift that is required—from being an active parent, overseeing a teenager’s actions, keeping track of a teenager’s hours, to being a calm, uninvolved, hip, laissez faire parent who trusts that her child will be fine, no matter what.  It’s not a natural process.  It throws off all your signals. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

Becky's stuff on the ground outside her dorm

 But I’m working on it. 

It helps to make promises to myself:  I promise I won’t go whacko and think up bogus reasons to drive to Greensboro in order to show up on her doorstep in tears, with homemade brownies in hand.  I promise that I won’t cry in my beer about the fact that I never read all the Harry Potter books to her out loud.  I promise that I won’t do again what I did the first night and eat five bowls of ice cream to try to make myself feel better.  But I also promise that I will cry, damn it, when I feel like it and to hell with how pathetic I look!  Most of all, I will celebrate the fact that our daughter is happily ensconced in college, so I will be a saint and not get angry when I read her Facebook status that says “Yaay, College!” at the same time that mine says, “Bereft.” 

Becky's dorm room