<p>Great emotional cleansing thread going here. I know it hasn’t really hit me yet- as I am expecting it to feel like a 2x4 hitting me in the head. S will be going to school on the other side of the world…</p>
<p>Big {{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}} berurah!!! What a wonderful gift for your D!! Our D is graduating from COLLEGE in less than 2 weeks!! My tears (the first round of many, I’m sure) started when they sent the pics of D in cap & gown–I just lost it. They wore white dresses for HS Graduation, so this is her first time in cap & gown!!! It’s gone much too quickly!!!</p>
<p>My D has known her best friend since they were two-years-old. They just turned 16. Anyway, she did a photoshop book for her, taking a compilation of pictures through the years, writing captions and passages, and then we uploaded the whole thing to a place called shutterfly who bound the book. My D’s best friend adored her present.</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>Some reassurance from one with two in college, and the “baby” heading off this fall. Please bear in mind that the amount of class time seems inversely proportional to the size of tuition. They’ll be home a LOT. Encourage them to bring friends home because that helps you “get” what’s going on. Barter for photographs in emails (if you’re still supporting them in any way, you have leverage!). I actually get news all the time through IMs - and though they never wanted me to look over their shoulders during high school, now I get papers (note:make sure it has not been handed in if you’re going to offer advice - NOTHING worse than saying “gee, I thought the last paragraph didn’t quite pull it together” and discover the project is a done deal. If that’s the case the correct response is “FABULOUS!”)
Bear in mind that YOU are taken for granted - he/she knows the family is still there, and they might be more nervous about leaving friends behind, and more eager to reconnect with them than with you. Or - if they have had a lousy high school experience, they might dread coming home if they have become someone they feel better about, if they’re away. It might be time to spend, if you can, on a family holiday trip.
Now, one more big item on the list. Know that freshman fall is frequently something of a pit. They’re coping with a decision they made, seeing the warts, watching fantasies fade, NOT getting into the drama, acapella group, class, etc etc that they had visualized over the summer. They’ll need YOU to be on an even keel when they call. And remember, they’ll call when they feel terrible, not when they’re having fun…so you’ll get a skewed image of what’s happening.
All my way of saying, as needy as we all feel, this is when they need us to be grownups. But I already have a strange feeling in my soul when I realize I won’t be putting my feet up with my daughter at the end of our workdays, talking about what’s what.
Good luck all!</p>
<p>I guess it hasn’t fully hit me yet. I’ve been working out all the financial stuff, which is giving me a headache. I filled out her permissions slips for the senior picnic, for graduation (yes, her school requires a permission slip from the parents for graduation, because they bring the graduates from the school to the graduation site on buses), I made my donation to the Project Graduation party. I’ve done all these end of the year things, but when I think about D going away, I just start grinning because I’m so excited for her.</p>
<p>I was getting through this thread just fine, having gone through this back in the way distant past (3 years now) till I got to Firebadtreepretty’s post, and welled right up. What a poignant moment!</p>
<p>Well I’m still a year away (rising senior D) and I’m already starting to feel some early pangs (sort of like false labor?). Last night as my D was cleaning her room (!!), a much beloved but long-forgotten book fell off the bookcase and she asked me to read it it to her. So we sat down together, just before bedtime, and I read her “Bread and Jam for Frances.” She was absolutely fine after her 10 minutes retreat into childhood, and went happily back to being a typical 17-year-old dealing with APs and finals, end of Junior year and other teenage angst. </p>
<p>I, on the other hand, did not recover nearly as easily and found it hard to explain to my bewildered H how “Bread and Jam for Frances” had turned me into a weepy mess… (probably that menopause thing going on isn’t helping either, as sax observed)</p>
<p>Oh, thank G-D. I thought I was the only one experiencing these pangs before they even graduate.</p>
<p>Last night, I’m in the family room, while my SS and H are finishing dinner in the kitchen. S2 starts singing a song and S1 joins in. My H is laughing, but then joins in to the most laughable rendition I have ever heard. I start to cry thinking in a few months they won’t be at that table where we have shared the good times and the bad times.</p>
<p>I quickly regroup so no one sees the tears. S2 hears the sniffles and comes over, puts his arms around me and wants to know why I’m crying. I use the old allergy excuse, fooling no one.</p>
<p>Silly me ----- I am hoping that if I do a lot of crying now, maybe I won’t be too bad when we take them to school in August.</p>
<p>Thank goodness for the dog. He’s a great listener and loves to lick away the tears.</p>
<p>Those Frances books will get you every time…such a long way from empowered yet cynical HS kids ready to take on the world. I’d end up weeping in the closet!</p>
<p>OK…I got through this whole gosh-darn thread (been gardening for the last couple of days.) I was just fine-thank-you-very-much, until I got to orchestramom’s “Bread and Jam for Frances”. I’m still wiping the tears away. Jeez!</p>
<p>There is a water spot on my D’s graduation gown and not from the iron. But it really hit me yesterday when she and the senior class walked into the Honor Assembly wearing gowns, caps, cords, etc. I cry very easily and will not be wearing mascara for the next 2 weeks.</p>
<p>I have a Zits cartoon my son sent to me in Germany, and now it’s on my fridge here. In it, Connie comes up behind Jeremy. In the next few panels, you see her playing with a young Jeremy, swinging him around, doing projects, eating cookies and milk… In the last panel, Connie sighs. Jeremy says to Walt, “Talk to her Dad. She’s been staring at me and sighing like that all afternoon!”</p>
<p>Sometimes I feel like Jim Borgman has hidden cameras in my home.</p>
<p>
Oh, kat, this really struck me! I cannot fathom even getting to that place! Of course, now that S is home for ten days, I had my family of 8 for dinner last night along with 6 adopteds!! And that’s how it is most nights around here…Do you wanna trade the little basket for part of my grocery bill??? <em>ROFL</em> ;)</p>
<p>edad~
Serious tearing up at this one…<em>sigh</em></p>
<p>paying3~
Thank you <em>SO</em> much for the sweet hugs! They mean so much! Like your oldest S, my oldest S will proabably NEVER live here permanently again. His dreams are too big to fit in our small area…<em>sigh</em> At any rate, congrats on your S’s graduation (did you mention somewhere that you also have a h.s. grad this year??), and {{{{{{{gentle hugs}}}}}}} backatcha! :)</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>I got weepy making the airline reservations for the big move - Colorado to Washington, D.C.!</p>
<p>COMom~</p>
<p>Awwwwwwwwww, {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}!!! So exciting though!</p>
<p>I started getting blue at least a year before my oldest graduated, just after I saw a show about empty nest moms. I think with all the graduation activities, I didn’t have time to feel sad at that point though. </p>
<p>I was dreading the college drop-off, but I didn’t break down and cry until the oddest time. My son had a part-time job his last six months at home, and as we passed the place he had worked, I commented to my husband that we wouldn’t be seeing his car parked there anymore, and then the tears started flowing, but it was such a ridiculous time to break down, I was laughing too.</p>
<p>
OMG, then I have to ask you, corona, is it common for you to laugh when you cry?? My youngest D (12) had this “boyfriend” for nearly 5 months (the equivalent of 10 years of marriage when you adjust for age <em>ROFL</em>). So, they “broke up” last week, and <em>HE</em> was in tears, but when D told me about it, she was crying and then IMMEDIATELY burst into gales of laughter! At first I thought she was trying to pull one over on me and just <em>tell</em> me that they broke up, but they really HAD…it’s just that she laughed and cried at the same time!! I’ve heard of people who laugh at funerals, but didn’t realize that I might HAVE one of those! <em>rofl</em> :eek:</p>
<p>~b.</p>
<p>So is it harder with your D than with your first one B?</p>
<p>Alu~</p>
<p>Were the situations equivalent, I think it actually might be. BUT, my D is going to be staying local for college, and that factor changes things entirely. For her, this transition to college is not as stark as my son’s was, and I am not also dealing with the prospect (like I have had to with my S) of her NEVER considering our home her home again (meaning home city/area). Also, there is the emotional aspect of the experiences of your first shoving you into entirely new territory, something which I find anxiety-producing. For example, now I KNOW that a kid’s going off to college does NOT mean that I will never see him/her again. It just means that they won’t be as much of a constant in our daily existence. </p>
<p>There WAS something about that DVD, though, that just BLEW me out of the water emotionally. It’s funny…as emotional a person as I am (and I think that most here know I AM :o ), I am typically a little bit reserved in front of people and save the more overt emotional reactions (serious crying) for those private moments. There have only been a couple of times when I’ve been taken by complete surprise and just broke down on the spot. Watching the DVD with my D’s bf was one of those times.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, the only other time that I can really think of was <em>super</em> embarrassing. A couple of years ago, the wife of a co-worker of my dh had a baby, and we went to visit and bring dinner and some gifts. When the mom placed the teeny tiny newborn boy in my arms, he <strong><em>SO</em></strong> resembled all of my newborns in coloring, size, etc. that I BURST INTO TEARS IMMEDIATELY. The reaction was very nearly reflexive and extremely surprising to me, as I’d held numerous friends’ babies without such a reaction. SOOOOO weird…</p>
<p>So, that’s a long way of saying no…I don’t think that this has been harder with my D, at least under our circumstances.</p>
<p>Thanks for asking, sweetie. {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>last year at our BIGGG thanksgiving I made a toast, and said that this would probably be the last year we would all be together with the whole family, all 20 of us…everyone was like, no, she’ll come back…nope she won’t…</p>
<p>and booking airline flights, etc, that gets me teary…sigh</p>