My oldest child, my first baby, just turned 18. She’d been saying for years that as soon as she turned 18, she’d move out. Sure enough, she did. Why are we so astonished when people do exactly what they’ve said they’ll do?
She loved Sergeant Pepper, but the track she always skipped was “She’s Leaving Home.” She hated that song.
Today was the saddest day for me in a long time. I haven’t cried this much in years. I remember when I was 18 and moved several states away from home, how important that was to me personally to allow me to grow independently into my own self, and I knew she needed that too. (I didn’t find out her thoughts on Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” singing “I got to get away. I gotta get out of this place,” etc.) Call me dumb, but it wasn’t until today that I realized just how much my daughter’s presence helped to hold up my own existence. She was the only one who understood me, the only one I could really talk to. And listen to 60s and 70s rock ‘n’ roll with.
I’m still crying as I type this, but I remind myself an adult doesn’t need to be dependent on another person, and that my own strength can hold me up existentially if I just make use of it. I have the inner resources to do that, so I’m not bereft or anything. I’m crying because I love her and miss her, and all I care about is her safety.
I’ve never done this before:
{{{{{{Johanna}}}}}}
but I’m doing it now because I can empathize somewhat. When my stepdaughter moved to NYC to go to grad school I was much sadder than I expected to be. She was just turning 12 when I started seeing her mother, and we got married about a year later. We weren’t all that close–when they get to early adolescence they tend to want little to do with their bio parents, let alone a step-parent. And you have to keep some distance when you’re the stepfather, and the daughter is that age. But still my wife would tell me things her daughter had said that made me feel really happy, like how she was happy for our relationship and thought I took really good care of them both.
It was a very unhappy day in my life, and this was my stepdaughter, not my biological child. But you do get over it. You will feel better, I promise.
My mom tells the story that the day she dropped me off at college, she almost didn’t make it back home. First, she spent an hour babbling at me as we moved my stuff into the dorm room - advice, love, support, and I don’t remember all. She tells me I was very nice about letting her babble; I just remember having a nice talk with her.
On the drive home, she had to pull over to throw up, she was so upset. Then, of course, she also had to stop several times to use the bathroom, because the other end of her GI tract went into revolt. All in all, what should have been a five hour car trip took her nearly eight hours. She didn’t tell me about this until years later, because she didn’t want me to feel guilty. I was all caught up in my “I’m on my own at COLLEGE!” moment.
Your daughter understands. Really, she does. She’ll be back, at least for visits (and if she’s like me, there’ll be a few months after college when she lives with you, and a year when she’s thirty and trying to get a new career going). And you’ll do just fine. My mom did. There’s the phone, there’s email, and there’s Hallmark cards in the mail. I must have gotten two a week my first month. You’ll be fine.