This morning my husband calculated how many days we’ve spent as active parents, ever since our first child was born in 1996. The number is astounding: 10,531 days. For each of these days, my primary identity was “Mom.” Every waking moment was spent thinking about momming, or executing the tasks of momhood. It swept me up in a funnel cloud of carpools and parent-teacher conferences, youth group and birthday parties, moderating arguments and doling out band-aids for scraped knees. There were many unglamorous moments, but of course memory doesn’t work like that. I can already feel my memory distilling those 10,531 days down to reels of first giggles and piano recitals and the many Hallmark moments when my children were happy, hilarious, and oh-so adorable.
I told myself I wasn’t going to cry when we dropped off our youngest child at college. I didn’t cry when I saw her packing boxes in neat stacks in the corner of her bedroom at home (How did she get so organized? Certainly not from me!) — and I didn’t cry when I saw that she lovingly packed a few of her favorite stuffed animals to take with her.
My throat caught a little when I saw how empty her bedroom looked as she packed up the car. My throat caught even more as we drove into the city and she chose to play that darn song by Plain White T’s, the one that makes me feel sad every time I hear it.
She’s leaving the quiet, tree-lined streets of suburbia and heading to the city to attend a large university. Common wisdom calls us “empty nesters,” but I prefer the term I heard the other day from a fellow Mom who just dropped off her youngest at college: We are “Bird Launchers.”
Today feels a lot like the first day I dropped all four children off at school for the first time. I remember how impossibly quiet the house was. It took time to adjust to the new normal.
The house is impossibly quiet now, but I can’t feel sad about it. This morning, I watched my daughter transform a drab dorm room into a colorful place that looks like, well, it looks like her. She brought her quirky sense of style and charm to her little corner of the city and I am so proud of the person she is turning out to be.
She has a plant set up near the window, and she set up her tea kettle and tea bags on a table at the foot of her bed. Her Radiohead poster is up, and all her hair and make-up paraphernalia is lined up neatly on a closet shelf. I am watching her on Day One, creating her life with building blocks she’s gathered along the way. Just like her three brothers, she will figure out these next few years by trial and error, checking and recalibrating her happiness barometer.
“Will you miss us?” we asked her. She looks away, giggles, then shoots us a disarming smile. She doesn’t have to say it: she might miss us at certain moments, but overall, she is ready for this. She has been preparing for this moment and her excitement for what’s next is palpable.
The drive back home to suburbia was quiet. My husband and I stared straight ahead at the billowy clouds in a crisp September sky. We were shell shocked. While our daughter is on Day One of her new chapter in our new home, so are we. I look at my husband, and wonder what the next 10,531 days will bring. And so we begin.
