I Can't Believe How Fast it Went

A first year of college reflection

This is what I remember: standing along the wall of the gym, the feeling of being glued to it, of holding it up, of needing to stay in place. This is where you can stand, someone must have told me. I wasn’t allowed to be with my daughter.

My oldest, on her first day of kindergarten, sat twenty-five feet away in a neat row on the floor behind a sign marked with her new teacher’s name. The teacher, I’d come to learn, was a new grad, a baby herself. This worried me, of course it did. I wanted someone with experience to teach my child. Someone who knew how to manage 28 five and six-year-olds for hours on end. Someone who had voted in more than one presidential election. Someone who would know exactly how to reassure nervous parents that this would be a good year.

Nadia was young when she started school. Not four, like one of her other classmates, but she had just turned five and would remain one of the youngest in her classes for the entirety of this, and every subsequent, year.

But, she was also ready. Social and curious, the idea of school excited her.

On the gym wall, I searched the other parents’ faces. But all I saw were smiles. Smiles. Oh sure, I can smile. I am happy, too. But where, oh where, are the tears? Our babies, my baby, my sweet girl that made me a mother, the child that is so easy and fun, that I never once even considered putting her into preschool until too many people told me I had to, was going to be here, away from me — for hours each day.

The school is 1/3 of a mile from our home. I can hear the overhead announcements. We walked here.

Yes, I’d thought about homeschooling — was encouraged by some, influenced by others — for all of three seconds. I love the idea of it. But if you’ve ever seen me trying to teach this same child where middle C is on the piano, it would be glaringly obvious: I don’t possess the temperament to teach my children skills they don’t already possess.

After 15 minutes of waiting, the 6th-grade safety patrol asks my daughter’s class line to stand. Then, with little fanfare from the students, the faculty, or what seems like any of the other parents, they walk out of the gym and begin the next chapter of their lives.

I walk home, wiping away tears, baffled why more parents weren’t crying.

***

The first day of classes will start a week or so after drop off. Her dad and I have packed our minivan to the brim, full of her bedding, a (“essential”) mattress topper, and too many clothes. She’d wanted to pack something like 25 sweatshirts — first off, I didn’t realize she had so many. Second, no. We had a cubby to assemble, a rolling cart, shower shoes, a collapsible laundry basket, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, a fan. Almost everything on the list of college packing list essentials.

On the drive there, she sits in a seat behind us and, as usual, falls asleep almost instantly. This gives Chris and I some time to talk, to think, just more time with her in our presence.

A few weeks earlier, I wrote “Firepit with Nadia” on our family calendar. I wanted some intentional time for just me, my husband, and her. Shooing the younger kids away and to bed, we dedicated that evening to speak into her, to speak over her. We wanted to reinforce who she is at her core, tell her the gifts we see in her, and offer what we hope for her.

Truth and blessing, if you will.

True to form, I wrote out what I wanted to say in my journal and read it to her. I spoke all the words I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit into the few minutes of goodbye we’d have after we’d unpacked her into her dorm room.

In one of the sweetest nights of my life, we shared with her what she means to us, told her what we’re always here for you looks like practically, and with our words, sent her off to begin this new chapter of her life in freedom.

The conversation opened up more questions from her than I anticipated, and also honest admissions. And as we spoke well into the night, the three of us — on the cusp of physical separation — were knit even closer together.

Back in the van, she wakes up, laughing at how amazing she is at sleeping. Then we start talking. Playing music. She and I, at least, managing our nervous energy.

On campus, the pit in my stomach grows. We find a parking space, a rolling bin, and one of Nadia’s friends quickly finds us. She and her family begin to help unload our car. The dorm room is assembled in less time than I had anticipated, the girls hanging clothes and unpacking shoes like experts. I climb up onto the lofted twin bed — I’ll do it — I insist, fighting with the fitted sheet.

A mother, instinctively making a nest.

And then it’s time. She’s unpacked. All set up. Her shoes are on the shoe rack. Chris and I are, in this instant, superfluous. I cannot even speak for the lump in my throat. This has all felt so rushed.

The three of us walk back to the van, and while I know I’ve already said everything I need to say, and am grateful for that, and even though I want this for her so badly in the way I wanted this so badly for myself but never got it, my longing to hold her and never let go aches deep behind my heart.

I would never say it, because I really don’t mean it, but I don’t want her to stay here. I don’t want to go. And yet I do — I have to.

We hug, and I’m trying so hard not to sob, so instead, I make the goodbye too quick. “I love you. Be good.” And then I walk to the passenger seat of the car and get in.

Chris hugs her and she turns to walk back to her dorm.

We drive off and I begin to cry — more accurately, reader, to wail — with an emotion all too familiar to me. Grief.

***

This is what I remember: walking Nadia to school, probably holding her hand. She has a short bob and wears a striped knit dress, the kind in which she can still play tag and climb on the playground equipment at recess. I walk her to the gym where I’ve dropped her off every day this year but instead of going in, I give her a hug and a kiss a few feet away from the door.

She walks in and finds her class line, and in a few minutes, they’ll all walk to their classroom at the back of the school.

In a handful of hours, I’ll come back to collect her. All three kinder classes will be out on the field at the back of the school in celebration. There will be popsicles and hula hoops and a kickball game. The kids will run wild, and yet the teachers — inexplicably — still have everyone under control.

I’ll take a picture of Nadia and her teacher, that gem of a woman, who is also wearing a striped knit dress today. Twins, we laugh. Then, I will hand the teacher a little bag with a gift card and a note I’d written her earlier in the day.

After I’d dropped Nadia off that morning, I wasn’t halfway home before I started to feel emotion building in the back of my throat. By the time I was in my kitchen, the tears had come and I stood there, full-on crying — letting go of what I didn’t realize I was holding onto.

She made it.

I made it.

We made it.

Like water, Nadia had also taken to school well. Within mere weeks of her starting, not only was she happy to go each day, but I had quickly adjusted to her being gone, too. Her little brother and I ran errands on the days he wasn’t in preschool and, because I was pregnant, we often napped together in the afternoons.

But something about this first year coming to a close struck me.

I pulled out a notecard and started to write to the teacher:

Thank you for taking such good care of my daughter. For making learning fun and going to school a joy. For being such a gifted teacher.

How does a mother say, explain, express Thank you for caring for my child to someone who doesn’t yet know what it is to be a mother, to let part of her soul exist separate from your own?

But maybe this is what all mothers and children must do — learn to live together but independently, differentiate if you will, even by fractions at a time.

My tears so often are of grief.

But these were tears of joy.

I hand the bag to the teacher, hug her, and tell her Thank you. Then, I collect my daughter and we walk home, ready to enjoy our summer — together.

***

I drive solo down 81 South, the threat of rain looming constantly overhead. The van is empty, save a bag of snacks, a tool kit my husband insisted I bring, and the holy trinity of my mornings: coffee, a bottle of water, and a protein shake. I spent part of the ride in silence, in prayer. Part of the drive listening to a book. And part finally having enough time to catch up with my sister, and afterwards, one of my aunts.

The heavens open up once I hit the mountains. “I’m driving 45,” I tell Aunt Nancy, in explanation of the long pause in my sentence. Just be safe, she tells me, intrinsically understanding.

On campus, something’s off. There’s too much traffic. A blocked-off road. What is going … I see a handful of students wearing graduation robes. No. No! They can’t have graduation on the same day as move-out!

Cars are pulled up and parked on curbs. Graduation traffic on top of parents loading up minivans and trucks and those ambitious ones believing a dorm room will fit into their hatchbacks. I guide the van up a curb myself and park in a spot I believe is close enough — until my daughter informs me there’s a three-hour wait for a rolling cart and later when I haven’t made it 100 feet away from her dorm room with one bag on my back and one in my arms before I’m in a full sweat under my clothes and the rain has drenched me on top of them. I can’t do this.

On this first trip out, we saw a family preparing to leave that was infinitely closer than where I had parked. “Stay here,” I tell my daughter. She drops the cubby she was trying to carry. “Grab it when they go.” I’m not even to the van when she texts Got the spot. Standing in the road. Come quick.

Before long, the dorm room is empty. “Do you want me to take a picture?” I ask.

“No,” she says. The good memories are in all the pictures with this room full.

We stop for food. “This is the best burrito I’ve ever eaten,” she says. I ask if it’s because I paid for it. She laughs, “Probably.”

It will take us over two hours to get to a city that’s normally only 30 minutes from campus. Maybe it was an accident. Or construction. We can’t do anything about it, so we talk. Debrief. I know at some point she’ll fall asleep.

But right now, we’re both in a little bit in awe. Neither of us can believe how fast this year went. We’re truly baffled.

“I’m happy that I’m sad to go,” she says, looking straight out the window at the stopped line of semis in front of us. “Does that make sense?” she asks.

I nod, yes. It makes total sense.

“I had such a good year,” she says.

For once, I have no tears. I just smile, grateful.

To support my work, consider sharing this post and becoming a subscriber!

Thank you!