Nesting: In and Out

    

Other parents warned me what it might be like. I could have a teenager who was actually ready to leave home. Nope, I thought. I'll either make it so good that he won't want to leave (firstborn) or screw him up enough that he can't ever go (neglected second child). The reality is that I've prepared him so well for so long that he is capable of standing on his own two feet. The problem is that he has one foot in and one foot out before I'm quite ready to open the door and let him fly.


It's not easy to send my youngest out into the world. I feel both wistful about the past and excited (perhaps even a bit envious) about his future. Like his brother, he is off to college in a new city on his own. He has our continued love and support with the freedom to soar. It's a huge developmental milestone leaving home- for him and for me. It's a step that neither one of us wants to take all at once. It makes him anxious to spread his wings when the nest feels safe. Its emptiness lies ahead of me, deep and bittersweet.


In moving on, children give up almost everything they have ever known with limited understanding of what lies ahead. It's not a big surprise that they resort to adaptive, and sometimes difficult psychological defenses to ease such a stressful transition. Like many, my son seems intent on soiling the nest before he takes off.


When he isn't broadcasting his detachment ("It's none of your business"), he's holed up in his room. If he's not criticizing my every move, he's nowhere to be found. He has decamped- both physically and mentally. He acts like a tenant and I'm the meddling landlord. Time together is sometimes so unpleasant that while I used to dread his departure, I am now able to help him pack up his bags.


In my head, I know there is an important function to all this friction: it will make it easier for both of us to part company with someone we can't often stand to be around anymore. He feels confident in his ties to home and even more secure when clinging to his friends. It's not a personal rejection of me, I tell myself. It's just his way of staying preoccupied to avoid the hard feelings of leaving his family. He is distracting himself with a long goodbye to ease the pain of his departure. In my heart, I make peace with it, with him.


I find comfort in knowing that him leaving isn't the end of my parenting road. It simply marks the next phase of it. The one where I tell him that it might seem like we've already covered it but there are a few things I want to touch base about again. I promise him that I'll keep it short and only say it one more time before he goes. I tell him I love him and then I let him take wing, watch him glide out the door and find his way in the world.





PC: Fagan Studios, Rochester MN

To Joseph, on your HS graduation. I couldn't be more proud of who you are and what you have accomplished or more excited about where you are headed and what you can do. The nest will always be here. Fly and be free.
I love you, Mom.

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Standing in the Gap

Everyone keeps asking me how I am doing lately.  What they want to know is how I am feeling about Sam, my oldest child, leaving for college this week.  Thanks for asking, but I'm finding it hard to talk about.  Not because I might burst into tears at any moment, but because I feel all sorts of things all at once and I can't quite explain it.  I feel like a washing machine when it goes from sensing the load, to agitating, to rinsing, to spinning, and then slowly, slowly stops-it's job well done.  In reflecting on the last 19 years with this child, I realize that's what I've done for him.  I've taken the beautiful mess of a boy I created at birth, gotten him soiled, sorted him out, roughed him up, wiped him clean, rinsed him off, and am now sending him out into the world all shiny and sweet smelling again.  It was a dirty job and someone had to do it.  I'm lucky it was me.

So, I'm feeling all the feels.  I'm tired and wrung out and at the same time excited and proud.  I am mostly grateful and so blessed to have been able to be there-really be there- with and for him his whole life till now.  Maya Angelou wrote in her book Mom & Me & Mom:

 "My mother spoke highly of me, and to me. But more important, ...she was there with me. She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother... I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known.  My mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why, people sensed that I had value.”

And now I'm standing in the gap.  The known is all around him- familiar, comfortable, safe.  The unknown lies ahead next week, next year- strange, different, unnerving.  He teeters on the edge of his future and I stand firm on the solid ground of his past.  I hold his history, his growth, his childhood in my hands.  He takes his strengths, his will, his promise and jumps forward.  I stay behind and watch a young man I know better than anyone else does and sometimes don't even recognize at all.  He goes on confidently, boldly, with only an occasional look over his shoulder for comfort and reassurance.  That reassurance is as much for me as for him I am certain.  That is the gift he leaves behind.  The satisfaction and sense of accomplishment we both have as he walks away.  So how do I feel?  How am I doing?  

I feel good until I get sad.  I am excited until I get anxious.  I feel happy until I am scared.  I am proud until I am uncertain.  I am strong until I am exhausted.  I am ready until I am not.  So, I'm doing everything.  I'm nagging and encouraging, helping and holding, getting in the way and making things easier.  I'm praying and wondering and hoping and dreaming. I'm standing in the gap.  I'm waiting for him to cross over and bridge that known and unknown.  I'm holding space for him as he goes forward into his future. I'm shedding my love so that he carries it with him and knows for certain how much I value and honor him.  

To Samuel- I promise to always stand in the gap for you.  Always.  Thanks for giving me the chance and for making me feel important.  With love, Momma.