There Is Something So Cool About Watching Your "Kids" Become People

It has been a while since I have been able to post on this blog, mainly because I felt too emotional. But a couple of months into "learning-to-live with a kid in college", I am slowly getting it together.

Sending my first baby off to college was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. Not because I was afraid that he wouldn't survive without me, but because I thought he would. Now I know that sounds a bit crazy because that is the goal of a parent, right? Raise your children to be independant and to go forward with the skills and ability to survive in the world. But when that reality hit, it left me scrambling to redefine myself. He doesn't need me anymore. For much of the last 18 years I have defined myself as simply "mother". The person who nags about homework, yells about grades, monitors friends, attends musical events and sporting events, does laundry, cleans the house, makes sure there is food in the fridge and back ups in the cupboard of everyone's favorite lotions, shampoos, and deodorants etc. Now that one of my babies is off being independent, what happens to the me I am used to? Yes I am still mom to one here at home, but somehow there is a void in me that misses being needed by both. It doesn't help when that kid at college doesn't want much (if any) interaction. Mom, you just gotta let go...you know you are not going to hear from me every day. I'm busy. But what if I want to hear from him everyday? What if I miss his smile, his friends, his playing the piano, his laundry, his homework, his everything?

The good news is that he is surviving without me.

 I guess we did our job as parents... he is his own person now. And I am learning to survive without him. I am slowly coming to terms with our limited interaction. It doesn't mean I don't tear up when I see him, or think of him, or say goodbye to him again. But I am even starting to enjoy it a little. So who am I now that I have a kid in college? I am still a mom, but now I can also be a yoga instructor, a friend, a blogger, a volunteer, a wife, a student....I guess I can be whatever I want to be.