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This past weekend, I had it all planned. I would take my son out to buy his clothes for college, having already warned him that I was on a budget and anything beyond that budget would be up to him because he has a job. You'd think I'd be excited because my son, my baby boy, is taking one great step in my mommyhood, but I'm low key for the moment.
Maybe it hasn't hit me yet. Maybe it hasn't hit him either because he said he didn't feel like shopping this weekend.
Maybe I'm less frazzled because he's going to the University of New Orleans, which means he's staying local, living at home. Also, in my family going to college is a given, the expected next step after high school. Sending my daughter off to college back in 1999, however, was another story completely. Frazzled is too weak a word for what I was back then.
I was still married, and the family had just moved from Georgia to Missouri. Her father and I rented a van to drive her and too many of her worldly goods from Kansas City to Princeton, NJ. Our son went also. They are ten years apart in age. And I cried. And cried. It was a huge production. We bought not only wardrobe, but linens, dorm room decorations, late night snacks, and a mini fridge.
You might think my son would feel cheated. No one's doing flips about his going to college, but he's more nonchalant than I am, and the more I think about it, the more I think it's due to all I put him through to get him emotionally prepared for the college experience, the freedom to fail mixed strangely with the terror that failing is not an option. Then came the hemming and hawing over finances, followed by relief when his money from the TOPS scholarship rolled into his UNO account. Whew! UNO is a good school and what we could afford. The only thing I'll be paying for is books, clothes, gas, the same stuff I've been paying for since he was born. Plus, unlike his sister, he'll be home at night.
He's not even excited about being able to sit in a classroom in street clothes again. For the last two years he, with the rest of public school students here, has been wearing a uniform.
Anyway, college is a piece of cake for me this time. I see it as college vs. running the streets of New Orleans. College or running the streets aimlessly with dead end job. College. ... Or running the streets. O.K. I'm good. The family and I have fooled him into thinking he must go to college. I've brainwashed him carefully over the last 18 years. Yes. I'm very good, but the next four years will be my report card and I'm a little scared. Shhhh. Don't tell him.
Now, what's going on at the House on a Hill blog is a big deal, one I can relate to because it reminds me of what a blubbering mommy I was sending my daughter off.
She was the sweetest baby a mother could ask for. She talked before she walked but she never went through the “baby talk” stage. A part of me wishes that she can always be my baby but that would be selfish. Sam is 16, she’s going to college and, in less than two weeks, I’ll be seeing her only during the weekends. I’m trying to be brave about the whole thing, you know, but I end up getting soppy sometimes. She’s my firstborn, after all, and she’s never been away from home longer than three days. (House on a Hill)
Connie's stronger than I am. Her 16-year-old baby is going away to study photography. ... 16.
CalicoDaisy's wailing up a storm:
Can I tell you how much I miss my son right now? I didn't sleep well last night, and I woke up crying this morning. This is the first time in 14 years I didn't get him ready for the first day of school. I couldn't sleep last night because I thought he could be anywhere. Is he in his dorm room bed? Is he visiting with friends? Did he get a wild idea to run to Wal-Mart at midnight? I don't know. Will he get up in time for college classes? Will he make nice friends? Will he remember to be kind when he is frustrated? Will he remember that he
