Editor’s note: In two commentaries, Advertiser writer Shayna Coleon recalls how her move to a Mainland college compelled her to grow as never before, and Advertiser assistant features editor Elizabeth Kieszkowski grapples with the emotions of letting go of her child.
The process of preparing for my daughter’s departure for college has been by turns hectic, plodding, unreal and joyful. At times it has also seemed too painful for words.
This is the week before Ricki leaves, and this week I am keeping my chin up, but there’s an undercurrent of panic beneath my optimistic facade. That’s not over Ricki’s fate, but my own.
My daughter and I have been through a lot together. Her older sister left for college four years ago, and we have lived together, just the two of us, since then. This period involved relocating to Hawai‘i, then making some real financial sacrifice to get her attending private school. We’ve lived in close quarters, and while I sweated career goals, she sweated college plans.
Now that Ricki’s leaving, we’re both looking back, to some extent, and recognizing our passages. But it’s a different process for me than for her.
I don’t think Ricki’s worried at all about life without Mom. When I left home, I was also 17, and I rushed into my future without a backward glance. This transition highlights the difference between parenting, which is so much defined by its attachments, and adolescence, which is so much defined by breaking away.
For Ricki, there’s all this life to look forward to. Of course, I’m thrilled for her, and I have new experiences to look forward to as well.
But this parenthood thing has defined me since I was (barely) an adult. Now I’m not sure I know what to do with myself without someone else in the house to be a busybody over. That work business? Well, a lot of that has always revolved around providing security for my family. Now I can foresee a time when my kids will provide for themselves. I haven’t really prepared for a life that doesn’t revolve around children. Ricki’s been preparing for an independent life for quite some time.
In these last days before Ricki leaves, I’ve adopted one of those irritating sayings that pop in and out of common speech: “Who knew?” As in, “Who knew that you would glow with such excitement?” And, “Who knew that I would be so nostalgic? So suddenly traditional, when our family life was always so casual and practical?”
Now I want to go back to the way it was before teenagedom put some distance between us, back to the days when I could give my kid frequent, random hugs and pour the milk in her cereal. With this countdown to separation in progress, I know it won’t be like that again.
For much of the past year, we’ve been living by a checklist. 1) Pick colleges. 18) Buy a computer. 27) File for an absentee ballot.
But in the end — and unfortunately, I guess everybody has to learn this afresh — the things that seem to matter are “that time we made sandwiches together” and stuff like that.
My one piece of advice: If you really want to plan ahead, make sure you slot more time — no, a little more; more . . . there, that’s enough — for this kind of together time.
On the day I wrote this essay, we stopped at the grocery store for snacks, and Ricki picked up some item that would normally have been special occasion-only stuff.
“Go ahead, we’ll get it,” I said sardonically, disguising my desire to make her happy. “This is your last week, and you’ll probably remember it vividly. I want you to think the last year was great.”
“It was great, mostly,” she said, carefully looking away at the packaged goods. Wouldn’t want to make too much of that, after all. But my heart leapt. If that sounds banal, well, that’s the way most real family interactions go. You have to pay close attention to those little things.
For much of the past year, Ricki has been growing up and away. I’ve been trying to stay cool, but at the same time I’ve been trying sometimes too hard to hang on.
In the end? I can’t tell you. I haven’t faced it yet. And of course, it’s not the end, just a transition. But I predict that while Ricki will boldly go where no woman in our family has ever gone before — to Wellesley — it will take a few months longer — 12? 48? — before I can comfortably move on.
