My girl is grown and gone now. In the last calendar year, she was home for about 12 weeks total, on and off, between programs and school. And I am used to this, her being gone. Our lives and those of her siblings have filled her space in our daily goings on, much like water seeps wherever it pleases when it spills. I am used to her room being dark and neat, sometimes a faint scent of her not-often-used perfume when I dump a load of clean laundry on her made bed for lack of any other decent space to put it. Her tiny tutus from her first ballet classes hang on the walls, and the little sequins glint in the light that comes between the slats in the closed blinds, light that also illuminates the dust and dog fur bunnies gathering in corners.
She was 15 when she left. Now I have friends whose children we had those first playgroups with who are seniors, and juniors, her peers. She just left three years early. And I am okay with that now. But I watch my friends whose kids are gearing up for SATs and post-senior year plans, yearbook photos with bow ties and tuxes, and college visits posted on social media. Sometimes I think to myself — whew, I’m glad we got that over with already. Sometimes I think to myself — oh friend, you have no idea what’s coming. And sometimes I think — been there, wish I had some advice for you — but I don’t.
It isn’t their being gone that makes you sad, in the end. Life, work, chores, siblings’ activities, and schooling — those things go on, whether children are gone or away. And how far away they are or where they ended up being admitted and going — even that doesn’t matter when you’re home without them. Of course, there are the first horrible adjustments to be made — the first few nights, weeks, even months, with a teary, homesick teen can be awful. But hopefully, they’re in the place they want to be. Hopefully, friends and a new routine come sooner rather than later, and hopefully, in time, the teary calls are less and less.
It’s been a full year now that she’s been gone. When I took her back to her program this August, I thought about how far she had come. She was no longer clinging to me, bewildered and shocked. Her friends were waiting to hug her as soon as we got out of the car. She knew where her room was, faculty and staff greeted her by name, she knew the routine and food, and where to go and what to do. She didn’t even call me that first night she was back, and that’s okay. I’m used to that now, too.
But what is always, always hard, no matter how used I am to her being gone, is the moment of leaving. We unpacked her suitcases and boxes, found her toiletries, and did a Target run. Her bed was made, her clothes were unpacked (where did those towels vanish to over the summer??), her snacks were stowed in the closet, and I was just standing there, watching her. Okay, I realized, she doesn’t need me to do anything else. She’s moved in. She’s got this now. She didn’t say, “Moooooommmmm, it’s time for you to leave!!” in front of her friends. But I could tell it was time to go. Time to get in the rental car and drive back to the city, and fly home and out of her daily life again. That minute you realize it’s time, it is time.
She walked me down the stairs to the porch of her dorm since all her friends were in her room. She gave me a hug, and then I started to cry. And then she started to cry. And then I stopped. Just like the first year, we dropped her off. I’m the strong one when she’s upset. I’m her mother. No crying at the same time. And I know she is fine, will be fine. Just as I am used to her being gone now. But that moment of leaving, the goodbye, the physical act of walking away from the tiny little girl who still lives in my head and leaving her in a different place from me, a different city from me, a different state from me, with people in her life whom I will only know by name if that, well…that moment of leaving is the heartbreaking one.
I don’t have any advice for that moment. I wish I did.
