Hello world!
- by L.A. Law
- Posted on September 9, 2016
Party for 1 – Day # 8
It has been exactly 1 week since I dropped baby boy off at college, the last of 4 baby birds. He asked, “Are you gonna miss me? Are you gonna cry when you drop me off?”
Well, the short answer is no. No tears. I told him, “I am having a party when I get home from dropping you off at college!”
“Yeah, a party for 1,” he retorted!
It’s true, he knows me well. I did throw a party for just me and it was well deserved. When baby boy was born, he had twin sisters that were two and a half years old, and another sister in between, only 16 months old. So after 4 kids in two and a half years, 24 years later, just two and a half weeks after his 22nd birthday, I am free!
Well that freedom was short lived. He called me at 4:30 am the next morning, from the bathroom. I could hardly comprehend what he was saying, but I got the gist of his panic. He had hardly eaten or slept all weekend, his anxiety running high on the new adventure. It’s not like I was forcing him to go off to college. He had been dying to go away like his sisters did but suffered the last 3 years changing his major at community college. Now with his mind set on a solid trajectory, he was making his dream come true, heading off to live on campus, less than two hours away. Just far enough to have some space and close enough for emergencies.
He could have stayed home and drove himself to a local university, along with some scholarship money. But every time I suggested that, we ended up yelling at each other. I realized it was time to let go and let him make his own decisions, choose his own path. Which brings us back to the 4:30 am wake-up call! There is not much you can do when your kid calls you and you can hardly understand him and then the phone cuts out. You try to call him back and he tries to call you back and you try to come up with something encouraging at a time when your brain hasn’t begun to form complete sentences, only to be cut off again. So I offer a text message that cell phone reception is probably poor in the bathroom and that he will be fine in a few days. He figured out that he had to fix this himself. So proud!
But in the meantime, crickets. Of course now I can’t go back to sleep. My only happy thought is the party for 1 that awaits me at the end of the day. And I did enjoy my mix of alone time and time with family, friends and my partner in crime. Day #8 ends with creating this blog but it did just spill into day #9! What a party!
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Party for 1 – Day # 8 It has been exactly 1 week since I dropped baby boy off at college, the last of 4 baby birds. He asked, “Are you gonna miss me? Are you gonna cry when you drop me off?” Well, the short answer is no. No tears. I told him, “I am…