College Parents Weekend—Important Lessons Learned

On My Way to Parents Weekend:

It’s time. I actually get to peek inside her new world. Her new world that she has created in the 6 weeks that she has been away at college. I get to meet her friends and their parents, see her sorority, attend a football game, eat a few meals with her, and most likely take her to Target for necessities for which she would rather not use her allowance. But I know it will be a whirlwind, a frenetic two days, trying to squeeze it all in, trying to get a snap shot, a sampling of her new college life. Yeah, that one, the in which she taught me how to say goodbye (and yet I cried for a month); the one that she spent so much energy and time working toward; the one that kept me up some nights with worry that it would work out for her, that she would have college options she would be happy about, and ultimately, that she would be happy with the college she chose.

My biggest fear, which took me a while to realize, was that in my daughter’s absence, I would lose the one thing that I had worked tirelessly on for the last 18 years, the thing that I desperately wanted/needed to maintain, and that I prayed she would want—our connection. I did not want to smother her or unhealthily hang on to her, but I wanted to feel close to her and truly did not know how that would happen with her away.

And it took us a while. It was awkward sometimes. I held back and didn’t call or text because I was told to give her space. And that was hard and actually pained me. But I did it. Until I told her what I was doing. And she responded very simply, “Mom, you can text me all you want but I may not always text you back right away and please don’t ask me a lot of questions.”  O.k., I can deal with that. Slowly, we found our rhythm and ease in our communication, which is not every day, and sometimes just a few times a week. But it works. One very wise woman recently explained to me when I detailed my struggle around this issue, “You need to understand that you are with your daughter even though she is away. And she is with you. The 18 years that you have spent mothering her are always with her. She knows you are there for her because you have always been there.  She may not need to talk to you a lot because you are already with her.”

Yep, I am going with that!

On My Way Home From Parents Weekend:

I am not sad this time. I am full and happy with the knowledge and the feeling that she is indeed happy. She is creating a wonderful life for herself in a place that is nurturing, engaging, joyful and challenging for her.. (And I am also full and happy because we ate our way through her college town!). She seems older. She seems more confident. She seems more passionate, which I didn’t realize was even possible, given how passionate she was when she left in August. She was sincerely happy to see us, to spend time with us and to share her new world with us…until it was that time…the time when we needed to let her be…to retreat into her life that she continues to develop every single day; her life that does not involve us; her life that she works hard to make good for herself and for those around her.

We had moments with her…moments of pure joy and moments of pure tension. Moments when we met her friends and their parents and could not be happier with the wonderful choices she is making and the people with whom she surrounds herself. And moments of tension when we wanted/needed to assert our parental voices, to deliver messages that she did not like to hear, while trying to respect her need, necessity and right to establish her autonomy.

The blurred lines—so blurry and confusing sometimes. But it helps to be a united front. It helps that my husband and I can turn to each other for help and guidance on how to parent a college student. This is brand new, it’s unknown, and it is complicated. I am truly grateful to have a co-captain to help navigate these unchartered territories.

Heading home, I feel good. Time did what it was supposed to do. It healed. It helped put things in perspective and make sense of things that didn’t make sense to me right away. It forced me to deal with and accept the here and now. And most importantly, it forced me to let go and to come to terms with the sheer terror I felt in letting my daughter go. I realized that in sending my daughter to college, I was much more afraid for myself than for my daughter. I was afraid that I would lose her, that I wouldn’t feel complete without her in my house.

And neither of those fears became a reality. She went to college. She’s happy. We are connected. And my house is a bit quieter. And it’s nice to have a little extra time to focus on the rest of my family and my writing. I am good with that.

“Nothing goes away until it has taught us what we needed to know.”-Pema Chodron