I cried almost every day last week. Not on purpose. I wasn’t sitting around thinking about sad things or trying to work myself up. It would just happen. I would wake up anxious, think of something in the afternoon, or have a small interaction with my daughter that normally would have irritated me, and suddenly I would need to go into my room and cry.
The strange thing was that I couldn’t even tell you exactly what I was crying about. I knew this week was coming. My older daughter, Isabel, was leaving for college, and people had been asking me for months, “How are you going to feel when she leaves?” My answer was always the same: I have no idea.
Secretly, I wondered if I might actually feel a little relieved.
I Thought I Might Be Ready for Her to Go
We had been butting heads all summer. We started the summer with a memorable three-week trip to Asia. It was a wonderful trip, but we still butted heads there.
It got worse when we came home. She wanted independence. I wanted to know whether she had finished what she needed to finish, how she planned to pack, where she was going and what time she was coming home. She wanted me to stop asking.
In retrospect, I think we were both already separating. She was pulling toward her friends and the life waiting for her, and I was probably holding on more tightly than I realized. Because the summer had sometimes been contentious, I thought maybe the actual goodbye wouldn’t hit me that hard.
Then, a few days before we were supposed to drive her to school, I woke up feeling incredibly stressed. Nothing had happened, and I couldn’t even identify the thought behind the feeling. I just started crying.
Instead of trying to understand it, I decided to let myself cry. I didn’t tell myself to get it together or try to decide whether I was sad, anxious, scared or being overly emotional. I didn’t try to cheer myself up. I just let whatever was inside me come out. I felt better after.
It happened again the next day. Then the day before we left, Isabel was rude to me about something small. I scolded her, walked into my bedroom and started crying. Even then, I knew I wasn’t really crying about what she had said. There was just so much emotion sitting underneath everything.
Then She Cried
We drove her to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and stayed two nights while she moved in and started her orientation activities. The last evening, I hugged her goodbye in the middle of campus.
I thought I might cry, but instead, she did. She held onto me for a long time and cried in my arms. I was stunned because all summer she had seemed so ready to leave and so eager to be independent. Suddenly I could feel that she was nervous and emotional too.
It broke my heart and warmed it at exactly the same time. I told her we loved her, that she was ready, that she should enjoy college and meet new people, and that she could always call us. Then she went off to her evening activities, and my husband and I drove away.
I cried later, and again the next morning. After we came home, her absence started to hit me in a different way. I had thought I might enjoy the extra room in our apartment and the quieter household, and I probably will. But every little thing suddenly reminded me that she wasn’t there.
I told a friend it felt as though there were a hole in my heart. That sounds dramatic, but it was strangely accurate. Someone who had been woven into my everyday life for eighteen years was suddenly physically absent.
What surprised me was that I still couldn’t quite name what I was feeling. There was sadness, but there was also pride, love, worry, relief and emptiness. Maybe trying to label it wasn’t even useful because there wasn’t one emotion to name.
There Was Nothing to Fix
One of the most helpful things I did was talk to other mothers whose kids were also leaving for college. Some had already dropped them off, while others were getting ready to do it in September. We commiserated about how strange this stage is.
Apparently, many of us spent the summer arguing with the same children we were devastated to see leave. We wanted them to become independent, yet independence meant they didn’t need us in quite the same way anymore. We were proud that they were going off, meeting people and figuring things out on their own, while also feeling the emptiness of no longer being part of their everyday lives.
One mother said something that stayed with me: when they come home now, in some ways they will be guests.
I don’t think she meant that literally. Isabel will always have a home with us. But something has changed. For eighteen years, she lived under our roof, and her school schedules, activities, friends and needs shaped the rhythm of our family. Now she is building a life that exists separately from ours.
There isn’t anything to fix about that.
Let It Feel Sucky
I think that is what last week taught me. When something feels difficult, my instinct is often to do something about it—to understand it, solve it, reframe it, distract myself, find the lesson or move on.
But some experiences don’t need to be solved. Sometimes we just have to let them feel sucky for a while. We cry when we need to cry, talk to people who understand, and give ourselves permission not to know exactly what we are feeling.
I also realized that discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean something has gone wrong. This transition hurts precisely because something meaningful is changing.
My situation happens to be about sending a child to college, but we all eventually face moments when life changes before our emotions have caught up. A job ends. A relationship changes. A parent ages. We retire. We move. A chapter that has defined us for years closes, even if the next chapter is something we chose.
Sometimes the fastest way through isn’t to rush toward feeling better. It is to stop fighting the part that hurts.
What Comes Next
It’s now Isabel’s first full week of school. We text and FaceTime occasionally. Of course I would love to hear from her more, but I also know that not hearing from her constantly is probably a good sign.
At home, we’re beginning a new routine. Our younger daughter, Alexis, has started high school, and life is already starting to feel a little less raw. I still miss Isabel, but I’m also beginning to see that this can be an exciting new chapter for her—and for me too.
For all the parents out there dropping off your college kids, if this has been hard for you, you’re not alone. I know in my heart that, with time and a little gentleness toward ourselves, we will find our way into this new normal.
And if you’re reading this while going through a completely different difficult situation, I’m sending you a big hug. Be kind to yourself. We can’t always control what changes in our lives, but we can give ourselves permission to feel whatever comes with it.
So if it feels sucky right now, let it. And give yourself some time. Big hugs to you all
Lei