Leaving a Child at College and Winning at Life
Part of the midlife experience for many mothers involves releasing children when they go off to college. Sometimes this means just moving them into a dorm across town. Other times it means taking them off to college across state or several states away. And still other times it involves leaving them at universities all the way across the country. I had to the latter.
Today I’m sitting in the airport getting ready to return to California after delivering my daughter to New York and moving her into her dorm at New York University. It feels lonely traveling back alone; we arrived together. I looked at the big city becoming smaller in the rear view window as the driver took me to the airport and thought about leaving my baby girl there. I had to remind myself through the tears that she isn’t so little any more.
Every woman I have talked to has her own separation story about parting from a child on that first day of college. Each one cried. Even my sister who only took her two boys across town to college said she felt emotional…I thought that odd, but her boys had never even gone away to camp. (My children have gone away to camp for as long as eight weeks, but they were just two hours away.) My good friend said she cried a little each day for months; her son was her only child. In his third year of college, she still travels with him to move him into his dorm and then cries when she says goodbye—and misses him terribly when she gets home.
I started crying at least two weeks before my daughter and I got on a plane. I didn’t realize her leaving would affect me so dramatically. I’ve always been stoic about the kids going to camp and such. I felt a bit sad, but I was happy for us all to have a “break.” I enjoyed them learning to be independent. I rejoiced in their ability to be away from me. This—her being a country’s width away from me—feels a bit different. This will take some adjustment.
She cleaned her room before she left. When I get home I’ll find it neat and tidy, devoid of her. My sister said that would be hard. I know it will be. I’ll straighten it up some more and have the cleaning lady dust and vacuum—even her loft—so it will be perfect when she returns at Christmas break. And I’ll cry because she’s not in it now.
But as I write this she responded to a text message I sent her from the taxi saying goodbye and telling her I loved her. She says she’s happy, loves it at NYU and is making friends. And I know that she is as ready as any child can be to be a university student. She’s been read for at least six months.
The first night she was there she attended a loft party. When it was over she sent a text message—on her own—telling me she had met two nice (Jewish!) boys and they had all gone swimming in Washington Square fountain. “I win,” she wrote.
Knowing how she had struggled for 10 days prior to coming with the fact that she and her boyfriend had decided to break up prior to starting their college careers, I rejoiced in her new positive experience. “What do you win?” I texted back. “A date to High Holy Day services?”
“I win at life,” she texted back.
With that message I knew she’d truly begun her life away from me and away from home. All I needed to do was to throw my arms up and rejoice as she had done in that fountain.
So, I patted myself on the back and said, “Job well done, Nina. You win at life, too.” And I was happy for her. And I’m sure I’ll be happy, too…after I finish feeling sad about not seeing her until Parent’s Day in October. I keep reminding myself that she’s been away at camp for that long. It’s a bit different though when you have counselors watching your kid’s every move…I’ll get over it, though. All parents do. (Except the one I was told sold her house and moved to the town where her daughter was attending college.) We grow up, too, and adjust—just not quite as quickly as our children. I guess that’s when we need to start learning from them rather than them learning from us.
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