Bittersweet, it is all so bittersweet.
Oh yes it is very bittersweet!
I said goodbye to S today. He is my youngest (of 2) and this is his second year of college but he changed schools and will be attending a university in the U.K. It seems so far away. And even though I know that this is a terrific opportunity for him, and even though I have done this before, it is still hard.
Wow, that is tough @FallGirl! Will you travel to see him or will he come home for the holidays?!
abasket - it just happens that D is getting married in 5 1/2 weeks so he will be home for the wedding. He will be home for a month over the holidays, but this will be the first Thanksgiving without him. He wants me to visit in February, we will see…
I hear you @FallGirl, we live in Asia and our daughter is all the way on the east coast of the USA. Close to family and friends there, but a long way from us. Thank goodness for Skype.
I just realized today that it has been just a little over 2 weeks since I left him behind in college. It feels like 2 months.
Worst thing: I’m clearing out D2’s room (yes, she should be doing it, but I played the waiting game and lost. She’s out of college now, working/living an hour away.) Just going over the clothes, school notebooks, old whatever, is hard.
I haven’t tackled that yet @lookingforward, perhaps it will be a Christmas break joint project when she is home. @1203southview been almost four weeks here, feels like a long time for sure, and I am actively resisting the urge to start counting the weeks until Christmas vacation (though I do need to go book her flight soon).
^^^^ This is an excruciating task, requiring a box of kleenex to be kept within reach. It involves alternating between smiling and tearing up.
I kept texting her how unfair it was, ha. And focusing on how all those old clothes will do someone else some good. But it takes forever to wade through the memories. I actually think this is just another ring of fire and a new chapter will open with her, when it’s done.
Last weekend, I was going through a stack of school papers from my daughters’ elementary school years; they’re both college grads, now. As I flipped through some of the packets, I saw some roughly drawn pictures accompanied by statements such as “I like my mom.” “My mom is nice.” “My mom does fun things with me.” I felt really, really good.
Our first night at home without our daughter, our last child. I keep expecting her to walk in the front door.
This is hard.
It is weird - it comes and goes . . . easy some days and times then hits me with sadness and nostalgia at others.
I keep shoving it down. I know I am doing okay, I know that she is doing great and is happy. I know that the tears will spill over again when I least expect them.
Hugs @myyalieboy .
Similar story - when my D (now 25 years old) was in kindergarten, she had to write in a journal every Monday about her weekend. I found that journal years ago when D was going through her Terrible Tweens (not-talking, eye-rolling, door-slamming middle school years. Ugh.) Anyway, it was so comforting to read those five-year-old words: “This weekend we went to the zoo,” “on Saturday we picked apples” and so on. And always, always at the end of the entry “I love my Mommy and Daddy.”
I now keep that journal in my nightstand for when I’m feeling sad…
Definitely got the empty nest blues too! Some of it also has to do with summer fading and really dreading another long, cold winter. But the three weeks since I left him seems like three months. I am trying to do more and have “fun” but most of what I have been doing I could have done with him home.
School started last week in our town and the first day pictures and seeing the kids going off to school made me melancholy. I miss watching my son and his teammates play his sport. I even miss the annoying things like back to school night.
I know I will get over it and at many times I am fine, but not doing the happy dance other parents tell of. The clean house is not that exciting to me. The reality is that my job as a mom is kind of over, except for those crisis moments and I just wish it wasn’t.
I have posted this on other threads, and maybe here too. On the night before we flew back here which was the day after we left our daughter at school, I was complaining to my 75 year old mother over the phone that I was so sad leaving her behind and going so far away. My mother then said something that hit me like a ton of bricks. She said you know, missing your kids doesn’t end when you leave them off at college for the first time. She went on to say that every year when we leave in August to go back overseas and won’t return until June is painful for her (we have been doing this for 18+ years now, and I am a 54 year old woman). I never really thought about that before.
So, I am trying to feel blessed for the wonderful kid I had the chance to have such a wonderful person in my daily life for 18 and a half years. I keep reminding myself that the reason that it hurts is because we love each other, and to have that love is a wonderful thing.
When not at work I have been keeping busy cleaning S’s room. This evening when I went in to put some laundry away I noticed that the top dresser drawer would not close. I kept working on it and was able to fit my hand in to pull out some stuff behind the drawer. I felt something and thought “could it be?”. Yes, I pulled out the stuffed bear that was S’s well loved favorite. I thought I had put it in the cedar chest where I keep all of the stuff I will never get rid of and a few years ago realized that it was not there. I almost tore the house apart and could not find it. I became convinced that I must have thrown/given it away accidentally. The one toy I had to save. Needless to say I never told S.
I just stood in S’s room and hugged that bear and cried. But I see it as a good sign!