Mike Monteiro on how to deal with your suddenly grown-up kids. “When your kid leaves it is the happiest day of your life and also the saddest day of your life. And a lot of other feelings in between.” In the midst of this right now; it’s been a lot.
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Me too. I'm losing my first born and my live music buddy to a summer camp job and then to college this summer.
It's sort of helped that he's been gregarious and busy with friends and sports the past couple years, so I've been tapering off of time with him... but dang it, he's turning into a cool adult that I still wanna hang out with.
Also, I've got to admit I'm more than a bit jealous of where he is in his life right now: about to attend my same college, and even live in the same dorms I did. With zero pressure, just a campus visit and harmonious vibes.
I join you all in this bizarre soup of feels! It's a fantastic distraction from *gestures wildly* at any rate.
I've visited a bunch of colleges with my kids over the past 2-3 years and the overwhelming feeling I get is to want to go back to college. It all sounds so interesting and fun!
I felt this way every few years. The 2-3 year old phase was so adorable and the kids are so huggable (and don't mind), then they are 5 and those 2 yr olds are gone (I have twins, one boy one girl). This repeats over and over. One day those wonderful fun 5 year olds are gone forever, but now you have 9 year olds who are wonderful in their unique ways. In a few years they'll be gone too. And so it goes, hopefully for a long long time. Now my kids are 22 and have been out of the house for 4+ years. I miss them both, but empty nesting has it's perks too.
It reminds me of the concept of "ambiguous loss" in psychology... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguous_loss
I think it's a bit different from the technical definition, but the idea that you're grieving the loss of someone that is still here (but not really here) resonates.
My middle kid graduated elementary school last night, and our oldest graduates middle school tomorrow. I've dropped him off at school on my way to work every day since he started. We've had great conversations about music and life and people and politics. But now he'll be able to walk to the high school, and I keep thinking about how we will never have that kind of daily time together again, and even though he won't move out for a few more years, it's killing me. On the upside, I get to start doing this with his siblings.
The Atlantic had a great article a year or two ago about reframing those kids leaving the next and how to deal with the kids leaving home.
I've set reminders to push this back to me on August 28th, the day we get back from dropping off our freshman. I'm not crying, you're crying.
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