DAUGHTER LEAVING FOR UNIVERSITY

I keep sitting down to start a blog post about my daughter leaving for university, but I can’t make the words come out without having to get up and walk around and do something else to distract me. In my head I have compiled many such letters – wise words of advise for my girl child who is about to step up and out in the world. They all seem to contain some form of bird/angel analogy about growing wings and fleeing the nest and I can’t quite bring myself to say that, although it is of course true. I have a week left with her and she hasn’t started packing up her room yet thank god – I keep rushing back early from work to try and gulp down a little bit more time. Which is a little ridiculous I know. It’s not like she’s leaving the country. It’s not something to dread. It’s exciting and I’m thrilled for her and her new great big adventure. I just need to start getting a little bit better at dealing with change and this rite of passage is one that reminds us all about how fast life is whizzing by. I cried in Toy Story for goodness sake – in that scene where Andy’s mother stands in his empty room and don’t even get me going on “Boyhood” and the brief amount of time you have them in your grasp.

And look what I mean by “grasp” – I want to go back to that day – which I have to say looks like Circa 1920 where she sat in my arms and I could hold her wrist and know that she was as safe as I could possibly do all in my power to make her:-

I know my job as mother and protector will never be over – but it certainly feels like my umbilical cord connection is going to have to become a whole lot more elastic and stretchy than it’s been used to thus far. She’s a girl – we are very close – so I make no apologies for saying that it was a little bit different when my son when to university two years ago and it’s not as if I love him any less let me just say now (because otherwise daughter will tell him that she’s the most loved child in the family and it’s not true – I love them all the same!!), it’s just that we didn’t need long conversations over cups of tea and wine to relate.

In case he gets confused – this was the sort of difference I mean when he came home from school every day:-

I say “How are you?” as I pick him up from school
“Good thanks”
“What have you been up to today?”
“What do you mean?” (this is crucial – they always sound suspicious like you’re asking them some sort of loaded question)
“I don’t mean anything, just wondered what you’ve been doing today?”
“OH, um…..not much…
At this point, I don’t say anything, I just will him to say something, anything that I can latch on to and run with.
“Nope, really haven’t been doing anything very much.”

WHEREAS as you all know, a female response is likely to require at least three cups of tea before you’ve even got to what happened in the second lesson when X got really upset with Y because she said that the was a Z….and so on and so forth.

So there is going to be quite a large hole to fill and probably a very big phone bill, but she’s not going to be too far away and I’m very hopeful that she will be back loads, just as my son has been, so perhaps it won’t be so very awful not having her around after all. I left home at 17 and moved from Hong Kong to London for goodness sake – how hard is it going to be? I don’t remember my mother being remotely upset about my leaving… but then again she had my father who was the love of her life and I think they spent most of their young married life really hoping we would all bugger off so that they could get on with having a really fun time without us.

I don’t have that – I am on my own with my children and as a single parent, I do believe that it is very common to become closer to them than you would have been if you were still with your partner. I’ve had that massive privilege and I’m very grateful for it – but that time has gone by at the rate of knots (nots? I’ve never actually written that down before – not sure what it means, assume nautical?). I’ve got my work and friends and family and all that and LOADS to do, but still, I am totally dreading the drive back on my own after dropping her at her halls. I won’t be able to even see the road.

Need to remedy that actually.

Could be lethal.

So my “Dear Daughter” letter is going to have to wait – have had to get up and wander around again.