In three weeks, my favorite daughter will be leaving for her freshman year of college. I know! It’s gonna be big. And since she’s also our only daughter, we will be empty nesters.
Of course, she has prepared us for this by spending long periods of time in her room with her door closed, followed by a “goodbye” hollered as she leaves for work or to hang with friends.
Yesterday, after I felt like we hadn’t connected, I left a box of her favorite crackers on the counter. Lured by the Cheez-Its, she came out, and we had a great conversation.
But a few minutes ago, she popped into my office to tell me that cheetahs tend to be generally anxious creatures. And so, for a bit, we talked about cheetahs. And our own anxieties. And how the world is interesting and hard and how hard it must be to be a shy cheetah in a literal community of cheetahs.
This is what I will miss. My husband isn’t the type to talk about cheetah anxiety. He’s more of a how-was-your-day-what-should-we-make-for-dinner kind of guy. Sweet P and I can spend days in dialogue about the deep stuff and the trivial facts that fascinate her.
But there is also plenty I’m looking forward to.
Transitions Offer Growth
Transitions allow for growth, and we are both ready.
I don’t know how it’s going to be, to not have my kid around the house. I’ve never done it before. And as with any change, there are a lot of emotions. But the big one right now is excitement, for both her and I.
I don’t spend too much time thinking about what might happen, or how I might feel on the day we drop her off. I’m curious about it. Open to it.
I’ll just pay attention to what comes up.
So often we worry about how we’ll feel about things before they even happen. We project our angst about something we know little about even before we’ve experienced it. One study shows that most of what we worry about, something like 88 percent, never even happens.
What if we just stayed open to how life shows up and trust our abilities to handle the moments, to experience them, no matter how they feel?
We have the opportunity to hold so many things at one time. It’s possible to be excited and sad, curious and nervous in the same moment. Those big emotions mean we are human, alive. It means we give a rip about this life and this world. It’s not a negative to feel.
How Do I Know?
I’ve never had a kid go to college before, never been an empty nester. I think I’ll just keep my eyes and my heart, and my mind open to however the experience shows up. And then I’ll report back here.
I’m not sure what it will be like. But I am sure that worrying about what might happen, what I might feel, and how drop-off might go, is not where I want to put my energy. I need to be here now, to pay attention to this day, and then the next.
When we trust ourselves and trust in our ability to manage the moment, we don’t have to carry around the anxiety of what might be. We can leave that to the cheetahs.
Instead, we can be open to it all, knowing that we can feel it all and still move through it just fine.
Be well.
-p
You will both do great! 💕