Letting them Go

“It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches.”

Lemony Snicket

As new parents, the moment we gaze upon our newborn child, we begin to experience a sacrificial but also interdependent love like none we have experienced before. Our child depends on us but we too begin to depend on that feeling of being needed by them. We feed and clothe our children while training them for independent living. We even fool ourselves into thinking this time of nurturing continues forever – but eventually, for most, the time arrives, somewhat brutally, when we have to let our children go and begin their own journey in life.

The moment my eldest daughter entered her final year of Sixth Form, the day when she would leave home and go to uni came into view on the horizon. Not like the welcome first sight of the sea, more like the beginnings of a massive industrial build about to block your view of the countryside.

Still, I courted that day by helping my daughter choose which universities to apply for and taking her to their open days. I would sit in a lecture theatre listening to someone talk about the wonderful time my daughter was going to have at said institution – how she would even have the opportunity to study abroad, in some cases – for a whole year! I would feign enthusiasm until I believed it, while looking round impersonal halls of residence and imagining my daughter all alone in one of the little, bare rooms.

A gut-wrenching homesickness and sense of not belonging had tarnished my own time at university, forcing me to eventually leave after a year. I travelled home every weekend. Every Sunday after I waved my Mum and younger brother off, as they kindly always drove me back to London, I would cry into my pillow and hope Friday came quickly. The Top 40 countdown jingle on a Sunday evening and the view of the city just near the Scratchwood Services (now London Gateway), still bring feelings of unease even today.

None of this I wanted for my daughter. So, we talked about the importance of Freshers Week and getting to know people, of joining groups she was interested in and that any investment in settling in to uni during that first term would make the rest of her time there so much easier.

The dreaded day arrived and as I fussed around helping make her bed look homely, breathing in the slightly nauseating smell of noodles that was coming from the communal kitchen, I could feel my toes on the edge of a cliff of misery. We eventually dropped her at a meeting point on the college campus, where some nerdy types were going on a Pokemon Go walk and we said our goodbyes. I thought I would choke trying to stay cheerful. As we drove out of sight I sobbed.

For those of you with young children, that day for you must seem far off. But, believe me when I say that it comes around in an instant. I still hate the goodbyes. Four years down the road I still feel a tightness in my chest as I drop my eldest daughter outside her current house-share. The times apart are fine, strangely. It’s just the parting again after a visit – but it’s more of a tug inside my heart than full-blown tears now.

This year I start the same rollercoaster ride with my youngest daughter as she ponders the university courses she is interested in. I worry she will feel like I did. But maybe not. And so I paint another enthusiastic , encouraging smile on my face and brace myself once more for a slightly broken heart.