8 days.
I can count the time we have left on two shaky hands now.
Exactly nine weeks ago, I wrote about a sort of pre-longing I was feeling before my oldest daughter’s imminent departure for college, and my reckoning with the fact that I could count the weekends we had left together on two hands.
She is about to meet people whose parents I don’t know, sit in classes of professors I can’t picture, and form friendships with people I’ve never met who will be extremely important to her for some time, or even for all time.
She will learn where the no-fee ATMs are located, make her own doctor appointments for colds I may never hear about, find her own part-time work, figure out which laundry detergent she prefers, and whether she wants to eat salad at lunch even when the pizza is sitting right there.
She will not be texting me to let me know what time she’ll be home on a Saturday night.
“You raise them, you send them off…and then you pray,” my dad said on the phone last night.
I sit here today knowing that it’s no longer the weekends I can count on two hands, but the days.
8 days.
Maybe 7 by the time you read this.
I think my emotions have been compounded by spending the last several weeks watching so many of you send your own children off to college. Like the way the thrill ride lines at an amusement park are designed to build up the fear, the excitement, the intensity. This feeding off each other’s anxiety is all part of the ride, before you’ve even clicked your way through the final turnstile with your heart beating out of your body.
I’ve been trying to find creative ways to write OMG BUT HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE under each Instagram photo, each Facebook post, each confession of this love-and-loss combination those parents in this position are feeling:
But didn’t she just turn two yesterday?
He’s grown! How did that happen!
You did good mama!
It’s all so trite, I know. Please forgive me if you’ve been on the receiving end of my lamer comments. I mean what I say; it’s just that maybe I’m scared to let out all my thoughts about you—us—now having adult children or I’ll be lost in this emotional swirl more than I already am.
I’ve mentioned that I’ve always been nostalgic by nature. I can tie any given 80s song on the radio to a distinctive memory. I will point out the designer boutique on the corner of Christopher and Bleecker that used to be a mediocre pizza joint and before that, a tiny deli owned by a Greek man who filled the windows with rows of dusty 22-ounce beer bottles from around the world and cried to me when he lost his lease to gentrification. I will tell old stories I know my family has heard too many times before but whatever. I just like telling them, so deal with it.
This feeling though, what I’m going through right now: this is next level.
I find myself flipping through reams of old baby and toddler photos whenever I have a spare moment. I’m rescuing a few more pre-k masterpieces from the recycle bin than I probably need to. I’m looking at the pile of clothes and costume pieces, books and souvenirs that we’re taking to Housing Works and Goodwill and piecing together the stories they tell.
The skirt from my favorite ninth-grade photo of her that she always hated.
The silly sunglasses from New Year’s Eve 2020, when we turned our isolation into a multi-state, cross-country virtual party best we could.
The blanket emblazoned with vintage Playbills that became the perfect theater camp care package delivery.
The tiny mermaid trinket box from a business trip to Denmark, when I felt so guilty for missing some grade school event that seemed extremely important at the time, and I just had to believe that something shiny and pretty would make up for it.
The pretty bowl engraved with “dad” that no one seems to recognize or want.
I want to donate the items, but keep all of the stories. Can I do that?
We can do that, right?
Of course we can. It’s why we write.
Over the past few months, I admit I’ve laughed at some of the Facebook posts in groups for new college parents. I see moms asking for recommendations for the best dryer sheets, wondering whether a particular puffer jacket will be warm enough for Boston winters, or expressing an urgent need for the exact dimensions of a dorm room room dresser, lest one purchases drawer liners that are just too narrow.
I keep thinking, why are parents asking about these little things? Ridiculous!
And yet, when I send Thalia a text reminding her to pack something or check on something or other she texts back nothing but a 🚁 emoji.
We laugh. She’s right. But she’s also wrong.
It’s not that our kids can’t figure out what brand of dryer sheets to buy. It’s not that I think my incredibly responsible daughter will forget to register for classes. It’s just just that we parents are all huddled here together in this dim, narrow passageway that leads us to the upside-down roller coaster, and my God, we need something to do. Something to plan. Something to talk about. Something to connect over.
Something besides losing ourselves in a deceptively deep eddy of old baby clothes, kindergarten graduation photos, and memories of 18 years that went by as fast as everyone said they would.
Though of course, we never believed them.
Ah, Liz. Every single word. Can't begin to say how precisely All Those Things. (like Jessica, like so many of us). It is beyond gobsmacking that there's this thing we do, we throw our entire heart and soul into supporting the full (enough) development of a human being, whom we would do anything for; anything to protect; anything at all. And then the finest sign of success is that they leave, as effortlessly as possible! Simply take flight and are... well. Not entirely gone. But my daughter is heading for your town tomorrow, for the beginning of her sophomore year, and the ache is still unfathomable. (And you KNOW how far away I am from Brooklyn.)
Just: love to those two shaky hands; may she fly unfettered and may the wind be under her wings; may you get signs that she is really-and-truly okay; may you all find your way.
Thank you for sharing this. All of it. And mazel tov to all of y'all, while I'm at it.
I am here for you, girl. #year2