It's that time of year: parents are dropping their kids off at college and heading home to a quieter--if not silent--house. As prepared as we are to deal with the dorm shopping and final drop off, it's the silence--once they're gone--that knocks some of us off our feet.
A year ago, I dropped my son off at college in Washington, DC, 3,000 miles from home. Within an hour after saying our big goodbye (to my credit, with minimal fuss and fanfare) I was wandering around a nearly deserted, Sunday night DC, having completely lost track of my car after distracting myself with a tourist visit to the White House.
It was growing dark. I had left my phone in the car and the streets were literally deserted, with nary a taxi in sight. I finally stumbled on a lovely woman in a parking lot guard shack, and when I explained my predicament, she said, "Honey, I dropped my son off at college last year. I know exactly what you're going through. I'll take care of you." Ironically, she was the guard at the Red Cross...
My angel called a taxi to come and rescue me, telling her, "I have a very nice lady here--she can't find her car," and adding to the female dispatcher, "She just dropped her son off at college!" It turned out I had parked two minutes away and had just flat out lost my bearings...
When I returned home I simultaneously felt an exhilarating sense of freedom and a sadness as though someone had died. In my rational mind, I was thrilled; my son was happy, in a great college, and I knew he'd do well. It was the heart-based bits that derailed me, hitting a peak on his birthday a week or two after the drop off. I called a friend and neighbor (a Mom who had been down this road a year earlier). She heard the crackling of my voice and said, "Are you okay?" I eked out, "No." "Do you want me to come over?" "Yes." A few minutes later one strong momma had her arms around this weeping one, propping me up as I moved through the first real round of letting go.
I am by no means done with the letting go process, but I'm through the worst of the adjustment (I think) and enjoying the new version of my life with great gusto. One thing I have discovered is how important it is to simply stand in the truth of my joy and my sorrow, allowing whatever feelings come up to have space and wash over and through me. In many ways, it a grieving process, releasing not only the daily contact with my son, but with a part of my identity that is being transmuted into something new--a different version of being a parent that I'm still learning.
Most of all, I have learned that the terms of endearment--the cost of this kind of mother/child attachment--is enormous. It is cellular, in our bones. We really do need to lean on one another as we navigate this chapter of letting go, asking for help or simply a shoulder to cry on when the going gets tough.
I'm proud of my son for stepping further into his own life, and proud of me for stepping further into my own. It is indeed quite a journey for us both.