You Will Be All Right
That drive away from dropping your kid off at college is a knife to the heart.
Photo of the Barnes & Noble dinosaur exhibit that triggered another round of tears.
I woke up thinking I was on vacation. The sunlight had the feel of late summer. The stiff hotel sheets and the pillow felt unfamiliar to my skin, and I heard the whir of a hotel AC unit.
Breathing in non-home, non-Houston air from the AC unit gave me dry nostrils. Slowly it dawned on me that this is no vacation. This is college move-in day for child number two.
“We’re not going to be there all day. We just have to take his stuff to the room and set up,” my husband quipped as we got ready. Little did he know what my daughter and I had bought to organize the room. Little did my husband know I wanted to be there all day, just like I did with our daughter’s college move-in.
I got out of bed with a backache from two days on the road and a mild dull headache — from either roadtrip-rot or from crying myself to sleep the night before, remembering all the stages my son has gone through: the nursing newborn, the chubby-legged toddler, the dinosaur aficionado, the jazz band drummer, the lacrosse player.
How could it have gone so fast?
On the road trip, tears came when a sign on the last stretch of highway pointed the way to his new home town out of state. Just like with his sister’s move-in, I wanted to turn our cars, with their giant blue moving bags and dorm refrigerator, back toward home.
My son drove behind me on the highway, so for the duration of the ride, his headlights watched me in the rear-view mirror. I kept thinking of things I haven’t taught him yet. Like never try to pass an 18-wheeler on a downhill — do it on an uphill so the weight of the truck will make it slower and easier to pass (a lesson learned from my own dad on Colorado highways).
Don’t put your wet towels in the hamper or they’ll spoil the whole load. Or wait — haven’t I said that one 1000 times? Use a cup at the hotel to hold your toothbrush so it doesn’t touch the hotel countertop. Sometimes spaghetti tastes better on the second night. Take pills with a whole glass of water and sit upright so you don’t get pill esophagitis.
And a few more things as you start your new journey at university. Give every new acquaintance a chance. Go to every event. Put yourself out there, even if it is uncomfortable. Go to class. Keep your mind open. And remember how much you are loved at home.
I’ve tried to teach him so much in the past 18 years: every tip I can about staying safe, being a respectful, good human. I have tried to tell him all the lessons I’ve learned in 51 years crammed into 18 years, knowing he has to learn them himself.
I am so proud of this kid that I just dropped off at college. I pray that the next four years will be a time of immense growth and that his foundation will hold. I want his mind to expand as he is surrounded by people who are different, people who are the same, and professors who guide his learning.
But I sure am going to miss him. It was a rough ride home for my husband and me. If I didn’t have one more waiting for me at home, and if I didn’t know it gets easier because of my daughter’s experience, I don’t know that I could have driven away.
I am moving more into the lighthouse stage of my parenting, and that’s OK. There will still be times they need me, and I will always need them. There will still be things for me to teach them, and increasingly, there are things for them to teach me.
I wonder about the parents online who say they have nothing but happiness and excitement for their college freshmen. “Don’t be sad! It ruins their transition! They can’t carry our emotions!” I wish I could be that way. Of course, I have happiness and excitement and pride — but it’s mixed with worry and fear and gut-punching sadness because I miss them so much. I’m not asking them to carry my sadness. I’m asking them to walk with me through it, and I’ll walk with them through theirs.
We drove away from the campus as the freshmen were going to or from a welcome week activity. Many had insecurity in their eyes. Many were awkwardly holding their phones to their ears, reassuring a parent or a home friend they were OK. They look so young, but I know in 9 months, these young adults will have grown so much.
I woke up the next morning in a hotel 10 hours down the road, again not knowing where I was. Thinking I need to wake him up to move in and then remembering that move-in was done. The next day, I woke up in my own bed, grateful to be in my own home, though it is eerily quiet with only one teenager left in the house.
It’s disorienting leaving your kid at college in another town. It’s also disorienting to rediscover who you are without them at home, too.
To those recently dropped off kids and my son, I say — you’re going to be all right. And to myself, brought to tears once again at the sight of his lifeguard uniform hanging in the closet, I say — you’re going to be all right, too.
The advice and opinions herein are by no means meant to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact your personal physician, mental health provider or health care professional for medical advice. Opinions are my own.