Friday, September 25, 2009

Life as an empty nester

My daughter (number 2 child) left for college August 18th... It was very difficult for me leaving her @ college, but I sucked it up, shed my tears and off we went. Luckily for us some good friends allowed us to borrow their pick up truck to transport all of Stefanie's "absolutely necessary" items. Suffice it to say that the truck bed was filled to the gills...

So we got her here and unpacked everything to an enormous heap which several "frogs" (freshman orientation group leaders) helped haul up to her 2nd floor room. The heap appeared to be the never ending pile of stuff... and I was relegated to standing watch over it and apologetically telling people who looked (in awe) at it that "we live 5 hrs. away from the school". So we finally got all her shit up to her room and began the assembly of her "loft" on which her bed mattress sits. Luckily there were other dad's there who graciously allowed us to borrow hammers/screw drivers etc. to get things set up. After about an hour and a half of "helping" get her settled it was time to finally leave.....

OMG...talk about hard... she walked us back down to the car and then she got teary when the "time" had finally come. Up until that point I have to say I was holding it together pretty well. But again.. I tried my best not to latch onto her with a death grip and just quietly let a few tears roll...

So we got back on the road... Jeff driving and me crying... My poor husband... he kept trying to reassure me... "she'll be fine" all that kind of stuff... but it was like I was transfixed and missing a huge part of my heart. After about an hour I was able to (for the most part) stop crying...we made it home in about 5 hrs.

Luckily she and her roommate have hit it off and are like 2 peas in a pod. The are bff's and seem to be having a blast @ school.

This weekend they are traveling to the roommates house for the weekend.. and next weekend. they are coming home to our house....

It's taken me over a month to finally be able to write about this without losing it. I am now finally able to actually go into her room again. Now I am just looking forward to next weekend! It will only be a short visit, but at least I will be able to see her... in person...Then again the weekend of Oct. 16th... when I travel to her college for the weekend to visit.

I guess the real question is... will it ever get easier to let her leave?

I think not...