Little By Little

Today it starts. The big move. The girls meet with the landlady today and pick up their keys. It will be official.

JC has always been my organized one. Making lists of her homework assignments, vacation packing lists, store lists, you name it. She lists it. This may be related to her mild OCD but she won’t admit it. She started packing last week for the move. Since then, I have stayed out of her room.

It depresses me to see her stuff in bins. Socks neatly stacked, t-shirts folded just so. What’s going to happen when my husband takes her bed apart and I have to help haul it to the truck?

I don’t want to cry, but I will. I get teary eyed just thinking about it now.

So what will I do?

I will take her shopping.

I will buy them all the items that girls tend to think just appear at their houses. Toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies and air fresheners. All the stuff they will need to get the boy stink out of their apartment. They don’t realize how hard that stink will be to get out! Three boys have lived there for the last 9 months. Three COLLEGE boys. Boys smell.

I was starting to feel better about it all until she started talking about how she doesn’t know what she wants to do in the future. Now my mommy-sense is kicking in and I am nervous. She is starting to question her career path, aiming lower than her brain is capable of. And I don’t like it.

I tell her that she can do what she wants because it is her life. But I am dying a little inside.

I am dying a little because she says she is tired of school. After her first year. What I think she is saying is that she is tired of having to save to pay for school. She likes nice things and likes spending money. Paying for school is not fun, it has no immediate gratification. And this is what is changing her mind.

When she says she can always go back to school later, I cringe. Many people say that and it never happens. I said that. And I did go back to school. Then I quit. She doesn’t know that life has a way of getting in the way of the best laid plans. There are always expenses. House payments, car payments…CHILDREN. They all take money. And they all take time. Time that becomes less and less available the older you get.

But she won’t listen. She has someone whispering in her ear.

“Don’t listen to them. Do what makes you happy. They don’t know what’s best for you.”

No, we may not know all what is best for you. We are not perfect.

But in the end, we just want you to know that people in life come and go; we will always be your rock. Planted in the same place so you can always find us.

So spread your wings. Find your way. But if you get lost along the way, please remember.

Your nest will always be warm and waiting. Right where it always has been.