She's been taking test flights out of the nest ever since she was 10. Want to be an exchange student on another continent in 5th grade? "Yes."
Want to fly - alone - to France - to visit family - alone - in 7th grade? "Yes." Did I mention you'd be going alone? "Yes."
Want to go on the 8th grade school trip to DC? "Will we meet Obama? Let's go! Let's go right now."
So you see, she's been ready to go for a while. Out into the world. To college. By herself with a few hundred fellow-stranger undergrads (and one friend). And yes, we are proud and happysad and anxious and happysad and excited and happysad. They love her so much, that school. They wrote her a personal letter praising her writing. They gave her money. They recruited her like crazy. Which helped us believe we were sending her to the right place, even if it felt very far away.
Cue scene: Husband and wife pep talk.
Him: "She'll come back."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "How can you be sure?"
Him: "She'll come back."
Me: "But how do you KNOW?"
Him: "I know her. She'll come back."
Me: "You didn't go back to France."
Him, after a pause: "That was different."
End scene of (unsuccessful) pep talk.
This is a girl who is fluent in three languages and about to undertake a 4th (Arabic). A girl who, for giggles, taught herself Swahili over a summer and Japanese over the next (but had no one to talk to in either language). A girl who says she wants to be a polyglot - and who has set the bar at four or more languages even though technically she already qualifies. Polyglot. One of the first words she used where I was the one who had to look in the dictionary.
This is a girl who won't stay home, no matter where she settles down. A girl who dreams of backpacking across Thailand, or is it Vietnam? A girl whose summer tour of Europe took her to Berlin, Holland, Hungary and Croatia. A California girl who only applied to colleges that were far from home in cold places that snow. She did not listen, or did not care to hear about her mother's experiences growing up in New Jersey. A place where the snow is beautiful as it falls from the night sky, bringing perpetual hope for a "snow day." Then, with only rare exceptions, we would awake to a crystal clear, snow-blindingly sunny day. By the time we'd come home from the "what snow?" school day, the pillows of white had turned into black and slushy curb mountains. Snow-plowed glaciers topped with crusts of ice that crunched and caved in as you climbed over. I remember snow boots. Soggy gloves. Layers of sweaters. Layers of socks. Static electricity. By the time you got dressed you were too hot and exhausted to go anywhere. Oh, and it was cold. Every year some genius would accept a dare to lick a street sign, just to see if it would stick. It would.
But California Girl, now College Girl, knows nothing of this and so she's gone to Chicago.
Already the house feels different. At first her little sister covered up her sorrow by asking if it was okay for her to refer to herself as the "Only Child." (No.) She reclaimed the bathroom, cleaned up her room and resolved to "never have a mess again." Her room will be repainted because pink is for little girls and she is 13 (and yes, I'm very happy that she is choosing blue paint instead of black). Her bunkbeds have been dismantled and sent away. She needs a real bed now.
Only Child was quick to blame her sister (accurately, as it turns out) for the beetles that moved into the bathroom over the summer. Cloth eating beetles. Cloth eating beetles that fly. So horrible that she often took College Girl's name in vain and introduced the acronym "WTF" to her vocabulary. I have a strict rule about cursing: you can only do it after you know ALL of the other words and can't find one suitable to your purpose. (There is, however, an exception given for music, because there is no way to sing Beyonce's Sorry (current favorite song) without singing some very bad words. I call this "The Hip Hop Exception" because the rule started with the Black Eyed Peas.) Moreover, WTF is probably the right choice of words when you're talking about flying, cloth-eating beetles in your bathroom.
Ten days gone and College Girl is off to a great start with great classes, a great job and great roommates, while Only Child is singing a slightly different tune. There is no one to steal makeup from and no one to blame when things go wrong. No one to complain to when Mom gets all unreasonable. All the chores that were previously shared are now hers alone. Bedtime is the worst, she hears noises that she used to blame on her sister. Now we have ghosts. My phone is full of text messages at midnight "Mom. I'm hearing something. Mom. It's right outside my door. Mom. Please come to my room. Mom. Mom!!"
During the day the family vibe is a little quieter. Only Child gets to make decisions about what we eat, what we'll buy at Target and can she get that new matte lipgloss we saw?
In College Girl's absence, some of the great mysteries of our lives are being answered with a simple "check her room." The electric tea kettle? Under her bed. Every. Single. White. Towel. (Check for beetles.) All of the screwdrivers, manual and electric (no charger, though). My running shoes, worn through at the toe but not from running. Wrapping paper. Twinkle lights. Non-college branded water bottles (useless). Clothing that didn't make the cut.
I'm pretty sure College Girl left key items at home just so she could get new stuff. Everything about the college experience is new and she wanted it to come with new stuff - even everyday items like moisturizer (found: two full bottles in her bedroom). New bed size means new special twin XL bedding ("Dear parents, our dormitory beds are extra long and will not fit your sheets, here is a link to buy..."). Storage containers to hold new stuff under her twin XL bed. A shower caddy for new wet stuff. A fan that clips on to anything. A bedside lamp that is not a desk lamp. A furry pillow to match the furry blanket she brought from home. A fresh bottle of ibuprofen NOT from Costco. School hoody, standard issue.
Other mysteries have surfaced, like why am I still finding long tendrils of her hair in my clean laundry? And why do those strands, that used to annoy this short haired girl, make me feel so wistful? And what am I supposed to do with the laundry College Girl left behind? Wash it? Ship it? Oh look! There's my blue sweater!
This is the beginning phase of the new normal. College Girl away, Only Child drying her wings, putting on matte lipstick and getting ready for her test flight to DC.
Cue scene:
Me: "What will we do after they're both gone from home?"
Him: "We'll be fine."
Me: "We'll be alone. Will you still cook for me?"
Him: "We'll be together. And we were married for 10 years before we had kids, didn't I cook for you then?"
Me: "Yes, but now we'll be lonely, only cooking for two."
Him: "Don't worry, I will still cook for you."
Me: "Before we had them we couldn't miss them. Now we won't be a couple without children, we'll be a couple whose children have grown up and moved away. It feels different."
Him: "...Have you booked College Girl's flight home for Thanksgiving?"
My BFF says I need to "take back" College Girl's room. Turn it into something else, like a guest room, or a room for myself. She thinks I should do it soon because, I suspect, she is worried that I will preserve it like a shrine, beetles and all (Okay, not the beetles, ew). I have a sentimental side and don't want to change College Girl's room because of what it will signify. And College Girl definitely doesn't want me in her room. Not just because of what I'll find (a beetle invasion of privacy), but because anything I do will make the room feel less hers. And while she's ready to fly, she's not ready to give up the nest.
And neither am I.