A rite of passage

So, this will be a thoughtful, sentimental post, compared to the "Cat's ringing" and other fun posts to come!

I watched Erin drive away yesterday afternoon, off for a fun weekend in Jacksonville. As she packed her bags, debated about what to take and carried loads of stuff down to her car, I was feeling such mixed emotions about this. While I was going to miss her, I was also kinda looking forward to a quiet weekend - a 4 day weekend, no less - all by myself without any noise, distraction or interruptions. I have a book I've been dying to read and now I can read it straight through without any interruptions. And I can watch whatever I want on tv without having her burst through the front door, toss her shoes by the dining room table, flop down on the sofa and change the channel without asking. I can cook what I want for dinner without scrambling to find a clean knife or the measuring spoons.

Erin is 19 years old and most of her friends are off at college - sleep-away college, too, not at campuses less than a mile from their mommies, and they are all experiencing their first out-of-mommy events (first break-up without mom, first hang-over without mom, first bad grade, etc.)  Erin is not. Since she attends a college within walking distance from home, and since we don't have the money to rent a separate apartment for her, she lives with me. She is an accomplished college student, holds down 3 part time jobs, participates in 2 dance companies, and yet she comes home every night to me, shares food with me, watches tv with me, checks in with me, calls me to find out where I am if I am late coming home. We haven't strayed far from the relationship we had when she was in high school.

I don't know if that is good or bad, but I am trying hard to make the most of it for both of us. I am relishing every moment I get with her even while I try to let her go and live her life without mommy breathing down her neck.

My son left for college when he was 19 and he attended a college that was a 12 hour drive away. He went through momentous changes without me hovering nearby for involvement, guidance or support. He went through rigorous military training, he found new friends, he struggled with a math class, he found and wooed the love of his life and he even proposed to her, all hundreds of miles away from mommy. And he did fine. He is in a happy, stable marriage with a healthy son and a successful career. I am so proud of him, and yet I know I missed all those pivotal events in his life and they can never be relived. As much as I feel the loss of those years with him, I am trying very hard not to take that out on Erin and be TOO involved in her life as she moves so deliberately and maturely into her adult years.

After she left yesterday, I straightened up the whole house. I picked up all her shoes dumped by the front door and put them in her closet. I picked up all the papers and magazines she left splayed across the coffee table in the living room and put them in a neat stack on her bed. I washed and put away all the sports bottles she left sitting by the kitchen sink. I took all her clean laundry she left on the dining room table and put it on her bed.  And I've been enoying a neat and organized household for these hours she's been gone.  It's refreshing to go out for my power walk and come back home to find the entry way still cleared from scattered shoes and backpacks. And to go into the kitchen to make some dinner and find the sink still cleared of dirty dishes.

But, when she bursts through the door Sunday evening, dropping shoes, purses, keys, water bottles and clothes in her wake, I will be oh so happy to have her home again.