Emotional Times for Mama

Our middle child is in final preparations to go off to college. She’s been spending a LOT of time with her friends; I’ve never seen a closer bunch of kids in my life. Most of them have been solid, special friends since about 3rd grade.

When I was her age, most of my friends (and I) went to UT. It was like my high school moved down the road a bit and we got rid of our parents. Now that UT is so selective and the high school my kids attend is so competitive, most of her class isn’t going to UT. The big chunk of them are going to Texas Tech, with kids going to Lewis & Clark, OU, UT SA, among others. Today, the first one heads off. There were tears last night after the first farewell dinner and our daughter wanted to be left alone.

Tonight, her best friend comes over to visit one last Wednesday before going off to Tech. For at least the last year, this wonderful young man has come over on Wednesdays and eaten dinner with us. He’s like another son to me and a big brother to our boy child. I know there will be more tears tonight, this time probably not just from our girl.

We will have a family dinner Sunday night before we take our daughter to Nacogdoches on Monday. I am having a hard time with this — our oldest daughter, we joke, started the moving out process when she was a junior in high school so by the time she actually left, we were relieved and happy at how excited she was to get out of the house and on with her life. This daughter has made our home a huge part of her life with friends and has enjoyed spending time with us. It will seem awfully quiet without her.

Boy Child and I were eating dinner last night, talking about this, and we both realized that we’d be spending a lot of time just the two of us. He smiled at me and said something along the lines of how it was not such a bad thing. It’s not. We’ll need to develop some new habits and routines to take advantage of what we two like to do.

I’ve gotten kind of weepy off and on here at unexpected times. And pissy. And bored.

One kid at home is just not nearly as much to do, even with the boy child’s schedule. It may be time for me to ease into the third part of my life, the part where I don’t have kids to think about. I’m toying with the idea of some classes or a part-time job. Maybe some training certifications.

All I know is I’m not the kind who redecorates the house and feels fullfilled.