SHE'S REALLY LEAVING.... what will I do

Parent Cafe
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<p>Bus driver, I think the word they use is “neurotic” :wink:
At the time, particularly where the houses/reno/moving etc. were involved, it was only a half-conscious understanding that it was a response to the empty nest.
Eg. “Now that my focus isn’t parenting an emerging adult, what do I want the landscape of my aging years to look like/what does the “new nest/new life” look like.”</p>

<p>At the same time, because he was here last summer with us, it’s still part home to him, but he’s a little more of a “visitor” in a way. I think it took that kind of drastic environmental shift to motivate me to focus more on my own life and give him the freedom to launch his own. The mind works in mysterious ways!</p>

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<p>Our only daughter is leaving for college this year and I tear up when I read many of these posts. I really don’t know what I’ll do without her. I am a father, btw.</p>

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<p>I’ve single-parented my S since he was 4 years old.</p>

<p>He is definitely my ‘best friend’. Not best friend in the sense that I burden him with my problems or that I look to him for guidance, but best friend in the sense that he has my off-beat sense of humor (and he is the only person in this world that I can say that about), he shares so many of my personality traits, we share so many of the same interests, given a choice there is NO ONE that I would rather spend my time with. </p>

<p>He left last fall to start college 500 miles away from home. I was used to him being away. He’d always spend weekends with his dad. He’d spent half his summers with his dad. He travelled abroad for several weeks during high school. So, I wasn’t really emotional when he went away to school. I guess on some level it felt like he’d just be gone for a few weeks and then everything would be back to ‘normal’.</p>

<p>Now that he’s been gone for more than half the year, it’s really starting to hit me that this is the new normal and I’ve been missing him a lot lately. Just dinners together, or watching movies, or going to his school activities. I still find myself going to a lot of the activities at school that he was involved with, not wanting to completely let go yet. But most of all, life without my son, is well, BORING! I’ve started volunteering with a couple groups and that occupies several evenings a week, but being at home just isn’t the same. I’ve even considered becoming a foster parent, just so my house isn’t empty anymore.</p>

<p>I agree that with today’s technology it’s easier than it used to be. My son is just a text message away whenever he’s not in class. I’m not quite sure how my mom managed when I went off to school back in the days when we didn’t even have a phone in our dorm room, once a week, I’d go down to the lobby to use the pay phone to call home. THAT would have been stressful!</p>

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<p>Mine left in the fall last year. I looked everywhere on the internet to confirm that I was not the only one who was not coping. I mean I still went to work, kept a happy face on and cheerfully sent texts and emails. But inside, I felt like my daughter had died. I felt like I had lost her and was doing some serious grieving. </p>

<p>Everyone calls it “empty nest” but to me it was much more of a loss. I felt a hole in my heart. My life is super busy; I barely have time to accomplish all the things I set myself up for, but while going through these motions, times when I was alone, I wept-I would say for a good solid two months every single day. </p>

<p>I’m not saying these things to scare anyone or to feel sorry for myself (I’m way past that). I’m saying it because i think it would have helped me to have my feelings validated by one other person on the planet when I was grieving so hard. Reading these posts sort of brings it back for me and I tear up just thinking of what some of you will have to go through. But little by little, it does get better, you do recover for the most part. </p>

<p>I tried to get ready for her leaving and kept saying to others and myself- “I’m fine, really, I’m great”, until it happened. When asked, and I told people how hard it was and they looked at me like “what is wrong with you?” Then I stopped telling them when they inquired. </p>

<p>What really devastated me was the idea that they turn 18 and our culture tells us it is time for them to leave us. And the reality is that once you kiss them goodbye, on that momentous day, it will never be the same again. Sure, she comes home, we have fun, do things like we used to. But she is a visitor in my home. I can feel it. She comes with a suitcase and leaves with one. She says, “I have to go home Sunday morning”-referring to college. Her friends are her new family. They take care of her when she is sick. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a great relationship with her and we text and talk. I don’t initiate and I wait for her to call me when she has time. And I do have my own life. My own.</p>

<p>I’m so glad she is at a great university, growing up and becoming a fine young woman. I can pretend all I want, but I miss the smell of her, her messy room, her playing stupid video games, her friends, her laziness, her brilliance and quiet eloquence- all of it. And I’ll never have that back again. She moved away. I still miss her terribly.</p>

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<p>aww… ::::tears::::
dreading it…</p>

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<p>MIMI - I have an only daughter who is a freshman and can totally understand where you are coming from. I miss her and feel that her new friends (whom I don’t even know) have taken my place in her day to day life - they see what she wears, what she eats, how she styles her hair, and get to hear the anecdotes of her daily life. I know that this is a good thing - she has made a wonderful new life for herself at college and is happy, but it is just hard to not be a part of it. I was actually better in the fall when she first left (maybe because I visited her a few times) but it hit me hard when she left after the holidays (maybe compounded by the cold grey winter days). Letting go is a hard thing to do!</p>

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<p>As you did, right? Our “culture” doesn’t tell us our kids eventually leave the nest, human nature does. Now, true, culture has defined 18 as the age kids may go to college (in older times they left to go find work or to marry), but it is in the Human Experience that kids will want to leave the nest to make their own way. The good news is that they usually still want very much to be a part of their parents’ lives. Just not as a dependent. And that’s the deal when we have children. We get this wonderful gift, but we give them one as well. We teach them how to function in the world because we won’t always be here to help them. So we show them the ropes, and if you’ve done your job well, they learn and are eager to practice what you’ve taught them.</p>

<p>It is sad to know you’ve come to the end of one path, but it’s okay, just as it was okay when you left to make your own mark. You just forge a new normal.</p>

<p>And someday you get to spoil the grandkids if you are lucky!</p>

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<p>A 60 y/o friend told me last night that she has finally accepted that her daughter cannot/will not properly mother her children and she is going to have to take over and raise her two young grandchildren. I cannot imagine starting over at 60 with two young kids who are probably going to have some serious issues as a result of basically being abandoned by BOTH parents. </p>

<p>Makes me view my empty nest in a more positive light.</p>

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<p>From the minute your child is born, your whole job is to prepare them to leave the house. You’ve done all you can. You have a great relationship with your daughter. Revel in her achievements and her new adventure. Fill the hole in your life with something you like to do and then you’ll have something to share. Don’t dread her leaving as it will just spoil the few months you have remaining. It’s never going to be the same but that is really okay. Since you did a great job raising her you’ll do an equally great job in raising yourself.</p>

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<p>My youngest will be leaving the nest in August, and we are very close. She and I are peas in a pod, I will miss her terribly. But I am grateful she will be going to college and is growing into a wonderful young lady.</p>

<p>When she was fourteen, one of her life-long friends was kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer. I know, that sounds like fiction, and how I wish it were. This girl was an only child, a bright and lovely girl. She was on a walk on a beautiful sunny spring day, and within an hour and a half, her parents realized something was horribly wrong when she didn’t come home. Every time I feel myself sliding into a sad place over my children leaving, I think of this girl’s parents and how much they’d give to be in my shoes. Normally I’m not a fan of making myself feel better by comparing to someone who is worse off–that is not what I’m doing exactly. I just ache for them still, and for their lost daughter. </p>

<p>Knowing them and having supported my daughter and her friends and the family during and after the ordeal has changed me, though. I try to treasure each day and let go of fear and live life. It isn’t always easy. I will miss my baby so when she’s away, and if I could stop time I might just do it. But you can’t.</p>

<p>I guess the other take away from this that I’ve come to is that you have to acknowledge pain and accept it–it WILL hurt for her to leave. I WILL miss her. It will be bittersweet, but I will try to find more sweetness after I give myself time to be blue about the change.</p>

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<p>MIMI - bless you for what you have written. I felt much the same way when my only child left home, but when I tried to explain my feelings to others, I got many of the same responses you did: namely, “what’s wrong with you?” Not so much sympathy or empathy but embarrasment or confusion. You are right - it’s nice to have your feelings validated.</p>

<p>You are also right in saying that it gets better but it’s never the same. And yes, it’s the way things are supposed to be - children grow up, they mature, they leave home to make their own lives - but that doesn’t mean you have to LIKE it when it happens to your own child. When you make a great friend whose company and personality you enjoy, don’t you grieve for them when they move away? Why should it be that much different for a son or daughter when they leave home?</p>

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<p>I can second IUmom7’s post. Be very thankful your child is healthy enough to go to college away from home. My older two children are NOT. The oldest did go away for a year, and although that was hard, it was much harder when he had to come home.</p>

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<p>Neither my H or I attended a 4 yr college. We didn’t have much support from our families when raising our two. We recieved some emotional support from my mom, but while my inlaws took early retirement to care for their daughters child, we struggled a great deal, not enough time/money, very small & old house, too much stress with long periods of unemployment, illness, school difficulties and inlaws that were openly hostile to me. </p>

<p>Ultimately I chose to quit work/ attending school to devote myself to the kids and giving them the best start I could, despite being burdened by severe depression.</p>

<p>I saw both our kids through high school graduation, the youngest is still in college. The oldest ( who is 8 yrs older), attended college & graduate school in another state and recently started a job that sounds custom made for her.</p>

<p>They are both wonderful young women and I had slowly begun to come to terms with that we would never all live under the same roof, and possibly never even all take a vacation together again.
Which was sad of course, but not unexpected.( although I am extra sad because of their summer commitments- we haven’t all had a vacation together longer than a couple days for years)</p>

<p>What *was unexpected * was when my oldest told me out of the blue not to contact her in any way because what I did to her as a child was too painful and contact with me reminds her.
To have her dad or her sister contact her in case of emergency but that she was blocking my phone number & email and would not acknowledge any communication from me.</p>

<p>I was shocked and stunned for weeks because I did not remember the things she was accusing me of.My friends convinced me it was just something she had to work through & helped me to understand that it wasn’t relevant that it was likely her memory wasn’t accurate- that was still her reality.</p>

<p>But it is heading on two months now, and I am so devastated that I can barely function.
I weep constantly, for the pain she must be in and for the closeness with her that I fear I will never feel again. She was such a happy delightful child even as a teen, that I never saw this coming.
It’s all I can do to hang on so that my youngest will still have a mother to come home to.</p>

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<p>I am so sorry to read this. I would feel exactly the same way. </p>

<p>Can your husband get out there to talk to her and find out what the deal is? I wonder if she went to a therapist who helped her “remember” something that never happened. My brother did that and the “abuse” he suddenly remembered was an absolute total fiction and serves to conveniently get him off the hook for all his own bad decisions and problems. Minds are incredibly vulnerable to suggestion, so it’s possible something like this happened to your daughter.</p>

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<p>EK - I have no words of wisdom, just a lot of sympathy. So sorry for your pain.</p>

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<p>I’m the single parent of an only child, and for me the anticipation was much worse than the reality. The summer before my son left for college was just horrible. Somehow the idea of his leaving was worse than having him gone. Because, as others said, you are still in touch, and, for me, at least, you realize you’re still a parent. Not in the same way as before, but there’s still that bond.
Emeraldkitty, I hope your D finds her way back to you.
Now he’s a sophomore and will be spending his second summer away, and it’s good. I’m surprised to be writing that, but it’s true. Everyone goes through this stage in their own way, and you can come out intact. Different, but intact.</p>

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<p>MIMI: beautifully written…thanks for sharing…I enjoy mine so much and this journey of turning into adults…seems unfair that we get to spend less time with them as it all comes together even though that’s how it is supposed to be…even though we have navigated the “three at once” their whole lives and that is our normal, three at once leaving is proving to be the most daunting…I’m just allowing myself to go with it…moments that I thought would be over the top emotional, have just been bittersweet and then something unexpected will cause me to cry (pulled into the neighborhood last week as two girls and two boys came clamoring up the ravine all muddy and I flashed to mine with their “neighborhood brother” doing the same what seems like only yesterday…and I burst onto tears…luckily alone in the car :blush:)…giving myself permission to feel whatever surfaces, whenever it happens has been very helpful</p>

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<p>mtmom209, big hugs to you. It will be hard, but you will get through it. Everyone handles it differently. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your health and your day-to-day functioning, I think it’s ok to feel whatever you are feeling. </p>

<p>I am on the second leg of this “letting go” journey. My daughter graduated last spring and moved halfway across the country in the summer. Yes, I am happy that she was offered a great job in her field, is independent, and has adjusted to life in a new state and city. Of course, I want that for her. But I miss seeing her and talking to her. She is extremely busy with her new life. How do I handle it? One day at a time. When I think beyond that, it gets me down. I don’t like feeling that way so I do my best to focus on the present.</p>

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<p>emeraldkity4, I’m very sorry to hear your situation. I hope with time your daughter comes around.</p>

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<p>Yes, it IS hard when they leave for college…no denying that. Our daughter is now a Sr. in college and our son a soph. When our daughter first left, I thought I would be an emotional wreck, perhaps even a little depression, as she and I have always been very close and did so much together. (Love my son just as much, but he was never as close emotionally with me or enjoyed doing as much with me…just the difference between a daughter and a son!) However, after my husband and I spent a very long, hot, emotional day moving her in and were both headed back home in our separate cars (took two to move all her stuff in!), we both pulled up to the same stoplight and he put his window down and asked “are you as tired as I am?!” We were both exhausted, but felt so good knowing she was at the best place she could be for a young woman her age. I have a close female friend who’s son did not go on to college due to problems with drugs, and who’s daughter is severely handicapped and will live with she and her husband all her life. I reminded myself to count our blessings and be so grateful she was doing the best thing she could/should for a young woman of her age. I told this to another lady friend/neighbor a year later when her son (oldest) was heading off to college, and she later told me of all the things people had said to her this comment made her feel the best about his leaving! Yes, it does seem like our daughter is now “visiting” when she comes home and I still cried when she left again yesterday after a week home for spring break…I do every time they leave!..but I have to keep reminding myself of what she is accomplishing and to be happy for her!</p>