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Everything is about to change

Our son’s room is half packed. His door is open and he’s not here.

He moves out tomorrow. Early in the morning, we’ll drive him the two and a half hours to Charlottesville. We’ll cart duffle bags and laundry baskets full of clothes and Twin XL linens to his dorm room, help him unpack, maybe run around buying stuff we forgot. And then we’ll drive away. I’ll likely sob. He’ll wave and say “SEE YA!” then start his new life.

It’s strange to simultaneously celebrate and mourn not being needed anymore. As parents, our job is to prepare our children to leave us. He feels ready to go out on his own, so I think we’ve maybe done that. And that feels good, and I’m super proud of him and excited for him. The whole world is out there to discover! But it’s hard to let go. His door will stay open after tomorrow, and he won’t come back home to close it. There will only be three of us at the dinner table each night. Tubbles will walk around meowing, looking in every room for him. She won’t find him anywhere. I’ll scratch his Reeses Puffs, American cheese, and bagel requests off my grocery list template.

He’s out with friends right now on his last day. A couple of them have already moved into their dorms at the college here in town. Others will scatter across the east coast in the coming weeks. When he comes home this evening, we’ll go out to dinner together, and he’ll like be packing deep into the night.

At 7 am, we’ll drive away with a car full of him and his stuff. And then we’ll drive home empty.

Good thing we still have our daughter at home.

7 thoughts on “Everything is about to change”

  2. Oh dear, that made me teary! I so get it. My son moved out at 18, into a share house with his cousin in my town, but I still rarely saw him… then Covid times struck, so he moved back home. It’s been great to have him back (& sometimes annoying of course), but now he’s moving to Melbourne in a couple of months (2 days drive away), and while I’m excited for his wing-spreading, I also am dreading how much I’ll cry. They have to fly the nest, and we want them to, but oh how the heart breaks to let them go too ❤️ Good luck. Don’t forget a hanky ❤️ G

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  3. That’s a real big change. I definitely feel for you. I hope it’s a bittersweet one.

    As someone who just reconnected with their mom after a long period of disconnection, I want to share a couple of my experiences just in case it helps.

    When I went off to college, I already had a habit of talking to my mom over AOL Instant Messenger while I was in school and she was at work. We kept up that connection all through college until AIM died off and my mom retired, meaning that she was no longer regularly on the computer. Despite the fact that I was off living my new life (or perhaps because of that fact), that connection meant everything to me and it quietly broke my heart when we stopped talking as much.

    Now we talk once a week and that connection has been truly life-changing for me.

    The other thing that I wanted to say is that you will always be needed. The roles will change as you move from being a caregiver to a peer and an advisor, but you are needed. College is hard. Being an adult is hard. And maybe he’ll take some time to figure things out on his own – I sure did as I felt the pressure of “I’m an adult now and I should figure this out.” But there are so many things that I wish I had my mom’s advice on earlier in my adulthood.

    Now, I’m 35 and I just went through some of the hardest experiences of my life. The first person I called when I felt like I was out of options and just didn’t know how I was going to survive was my mom. Despite the fact that we really hadn’t built back our relationship all that well again. She was still the first person that I wanted to reach out to.

    You will always be needed by your children.

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  4. Oh, I can so relate. Our son will be in a similar position in a few months. But we’ll always be their mums even when they’re out on their own. Big hugs to you

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