Life moves on - Children growing up & leaving home

[Punky143]

I'd love to go back 15 years ago and be a better mother to my only child. Show her more love, engage more with her. But, I can't. I have a lot of regrets but I will say she's a good 19 year old with commendable qualities. This will be my first Thanksgiving without my child. She is traveling to see her boyfriend graduate from boot camp and see him in person since the day he left. But it breaks my heart. She's also been talking about moving out and getting a place with him once he's home I'm February. My one and only child. I know this is "normal" part of growing up and not living at home for the rest of her life. It's terrifying, sad, and feelings of abandonment trickles in. I know it's not about me though. I will cry and with family, swallow to chock back the tears. I know I'm not the only parent that feels this way. All the great memories of the good times bring happiness. But now I don't know who I am anymore. Yes, she will still need me for things but it's not the same. I'm so depressed about other things but this hits really hard. I wish time could go backwards so I can be better.

 

[Movingforward10]

I'm not a parent so I don't know what thattlike. But I wanted to say:

wish time could go backwards so I can be better.

Having a parent who is reflective and knows that they could have done things differently, and is there for their adult child: wow. That's what I dream of. So, in my book: you're winning.

And, parenting a child who now at 19 feels confident to set up life on their own and venture in to the world? Again, you're winning at parenting.

I don't know if that helps with reframing things amto give a counter messages to the feelings of abandonment.

 

[arfie]

i indulge in that wish often, but mostly figure the list of possible mistakes is so infinite that i would probably just find different mistakes to achieve the same results.

parenting a child who now at 19 feels confident to set up life on their own and venture in to the world? Again, you're winning at parenting.

well said. i second that emotion. i am in my second parenting career and letting go is never easy.

 

[Friday]

The first time my son lived somewhere else, amidst all the rest of the big bad juju shredding me… there was this foundational… why the f*ck am I even HERE?!? As I wandered around our teeny tiny (huge, echoing, empty, wrong) house… or HERE?!? All this stuff, all this space, was for him. Not me. This wasn’t MY home, this was HIS home. And he was gone.

That he was “supposed to” be back soon? Didn’t help.

That my ex had trashed all the stuff I’d been setting aside for years for empty nesting, during the divorce? Didn’t help.

That I’d imagined myself as able to be chill & grinning, thrilled & relaxed, throwing him the keys to come & go as he pleased, & a hundred other things? Helped LATER, when I was actually able to be who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be, and where I wanted to be… but not in the beginning. It only made it worse, in the beginning, f*ck helping.

***

On the upside? When my son was a baby, most of my friends were sending their kids to college, or their kids were enlisting, or going on mission, or taking a gap year, or, or, or. Which is part of why I HAD a plan for empty-nesting, to begin with. Because I saw the seeeeeerious deep dark rabbit hole people were either plunged into… or surfacing out of 12-18mo later. <<< And that’s the upside. Just like “everyone” told me I was going to lose my mind after my first kid because of all of the sleep-dep & no-routine-f*ckery & having to completely rewrite my life? But that sometime right around the 2 year mark I’d “wake up feeling like ME, again”? >>> I’ve both been told & experienced that empty-nesting-madness lasts around a year, year and a half. Whether zeh kids are straight gone, or coming & going, or going & coming home for a few more years… it’s that first year or so that’s the mindf*ck.