Take Off to School

I just looked at my youngest daughter’s law school schedule. This schedule is huge, it takes a lot of time in class and adds the notorious reading load. It was emailed to me by her. She took the bus to her new town and discovered an apartment she may not be able to visit again. It makes me wonder if the items she brought with her were things that we purchased for her during high school. I doubt it.

The first time this was done, when the younger child went off to college. This ritual is still a part of our daily routine. We carefully reviewed the recommended items (sheets, shower slippers and a headphone to connect with a radio, personal audio device, or radio) before planning our trip. It was difficult to find hotels in the vicinity when everybody went back to school on the same week. We ended up staying at DoubleTree, which shared a lot with pretend Mexican-food restaurants.

Social media wasn’t yet in its infancy. My daughter met her roommates awkwardly while I carried my stuff around like a KISS rocker. The four parents were even less awkward. With 12 people in a dorm room tight for four occupants, everything was awkward. After shaking hands, moms and dads made comments about sheets, slippers and other things, no one was sure what the next step should be.

Someone broke the deadlock by announcing that there were shopping opportunities. As we flew up, our kid had run out of necessities. There were many toiletries that we could buy. I didn’t know how many liquids she needed for hair care. Some others thought buying shampoo at the CVS home would be a better option, as they weren’t driving and there were no pharmacies nearby, which could have made it more expensive.

A quick meeting among the girls led to the suggestion that common items could be bought, including a minifridge for the dorm room, which would promise only juice, and not beer. We were grateful for this task and divided the cost of buying the stuff as if we were plotting the invasion of Normandy.

Most families were able to find their way to the nearest Target. The process went well (we appreciated the familiarity and it was something that we all knew), until the “backpack” item appeared on the list. The mother of my daughter got in a heated argument with her. One side was defending the necessity for a non Target backpack. After obtaining directions to LL Bean, we continued the argument despite what appeared like hundreds of death-or-life choices.

A whole summer of frustration over growing up, and then growing old was shared between my daughter (and her mother). Red is too feminine? Is the size of college books equal to high school books? Are her children going to tease about her strap design or shape? What if college was governed by high school rules that could see a person being expelled for four years because of a single slip-up?

I wanted to tell you how the struggles she had to fit in at high school were over, particularly since she was the “new kid” for a while. College was different. Everyone was the kid. It was all she would learn soon enough. She was becoming less and less interested in me.

It was dark and ugly outside. I attempted to play the dad card, declaring that whatever bag was held in my daughter’s hands at the time was the winner. It was impossible to stop. It was unstoppable. A lot of emotions and thoughts were not expressed or, perhaps, in code that was translated into LL Bean stock-keeping terminology. After a terrible Mexican meal, we decided to buy a backpack and drop our daughter off at her dorm. Everyone would then fall asleep around 9 p.m

We greeted our youngest child on the morning of Judgment Day to find that it wasn’t. Even the most socially awkward of her roommates had made it through the night with the help of her mother. The roommates had a lot of fun, made plans to become friends, solved a little push-and pull over storage space and didn’t fall prey to the violent crimes that we parents thought they would. The parents never exchanged more than glances. One of the other dads snagged the job of unpacking the minifridge to occupy himself, and my wife folded, refolded, and rolled the 17 pairs of socks we had brought. Clean dorms, empty notebooks and all the hope-and-promise stuff.

I thank everyone at college for arranging a mandatory moment of separation. Students had a required, mandatory welcome barbecue. Parents were not allowed. While a few moms and fathers suggested that they stay one more night and check in next morning, most people understood that we had been dismissed. It was unnecessary, but we appreciate your kindness!

My wife and I went. Although there was so much we could have talked about, I doubt we spoke for many hours. We thought long and hard as we headed home. Before we arrived at our street I mentioned that maybe I was hungry so we could get a sandwich somewhere else. My wife (a. My wife, who a.) doesn’t like dining out and b. Does not enjoy drinking, and c.). suggested that we go to the local bar.

We didn’t drink as much as you would expect from a decent dive bar. However, we were able to keep our tears at bay with minimal lubrication. Although the waitress was likely to have seen customers crying in this kind of place before, it wasn’t as common for middle-aged couples in the middle part of the afternoon.

Afternoon on a August afternoon, our world was again changed. For some 18 years our lives were constructed around raising kids. Everything that was important and many things that were not. Who knew that a preteen could have opinions about which brand of ketchup they should buy? It was determined by what was most important to them.

Note that the “thought of best” was not given because there weren’t any instructions. Each moment is yours to handle. You end up sitting in a bar looking at the planes above you, very happy but also very sad. None of it was easy. It was hard to imagine how saying goodbye to your child, knowing that she had a great start to her life would feel and hurt. It was not something I expected to cry about, but it did.

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I was at home empty, and when I got out of my house, the trees still looked beautiful green with just a touch of yellow. It felt more like a feeling than a sight. A mosquito bit my leg. Summer is going to be hard for me. Although I was certain that we would all be there next summer, only our parents knew the time. It used to take a lot longer summers.

I remembered not 24 hours earlier, some kid my daughter had never met stuck her head into the dorm room and said “C’mon!” As I stood there, hugging her, not in the room, but all over the place where she’d fallen or requested ice cream. I didn’t hug an 18-year-old woman but a six-year-old, a 13-year-old, an infant in diapers, a two-year-old angry about being wet in the snow.

Despite my desire to keep her close for a while longer, I felt more connected to her in that instant to her anonymous roommate, who demanded she leave the house with me. And I was certain she had to go. Although she didn’t know, I knew. The distance between us was only a few inches, and it would be a distance that I wouldn’t cross again.