Roots and Wings

You are going to your first college camp. You are so excited you are jumping out of your skin and I am so excited for you. It’s been a major topic of conversation for months. It’s a couple of miles from our house, at the university where I work. Your dorm is literally across the parking lot from my office—but this is big. You will have roommates. And stay up late. And meet boys. And take classes in real college classrooms. This is a big deal.

You ask me twenty times if I’m ready to go. You ask questions about everything—the registration desk and the fast food joints and why the dorms have six girls. You want to know everything…until we sit through an interminable orientation and you spend the entire time texting your friends.

I ask if you want me to drop you off or go with you to check in. You look panicked. Definitely come with me, mom. We check in and get directions to pick up your dorm keys. Again I ask if you are ready to for me to go. No, come with me to my dorm. So I do. At the dorm there are five other girls with the same nervous-excited look on their faces. Five other parents give their kids hugs and say goodbye. No, stay, you say. Come with me to orientation. You hold my hand as we walk and for a few minutes you are five again and I’m your mom and you are my girl.

By the end of orientation your head is swiveling around, trying to see all the people. We head for a get-to-know-you ice cream social. I am tired. I have to be up in 8 hours and I still have to go home and do laundry and take a shower and pack a lunch. No, you say. Stay for ice cream while I find my new roommates. Suddenly I see that you’ve got this. Totally, completely, got this. I’m your training wheels and you are so ready for them to come off. No, I say. It’s late and I’m tired and you’ve got this. You hesitate. Then you nod. Yes, you say, I’ve got this. You bounce away, grinning, with the unconscious grace and artless elegance that are so you.

I go back to the car and cry.

I’m not sad.  This is what I want. This is what I love. You--confident, happy, bright and shining and marvelous and good. I’m crying because I’m tired and it’s been a long week and I’m so lucky to be your mom and this whole thing of dropping you off at dorm rooms and watching you flit away in highs-top sneakers is everything I want even if I also want to pull you back on my lap and sing one more lullaby and play one more game and just have a little bit more time to soak in the wonder of mothering you. The moment you were placed in my arms at two days old was the beginning of watching you leave.

Today as I’m exiting work my phone rings. Where are you, you say. Leaving work, I say. Wait! I’m almost to your office. Why? Oh, nothing. We are just having dinner by your office and we are early and I wanted to see you. I’m already in the car, I say. I’m already driving home, I say.

Can’t you just turn around?

I consider. I came into work early so I could leave early. A long to-do list took over and instead of leaving an hour early I got out ten minutes early. Ten minutes is still early enough to beat the traffic and cut my drive home in half. I have perishable food in the car. I told the sitter I’d be home early. I planned to cook a real dinner for my kids after a week of fast food.

Fine. But only for a minute. I’ll just give you a hug and then I need to get home.

You are watching for me. Your long legs lope over to my car when you see me coming. I roll down the passenger window and you start a rapid-fire monologue about the boys you met and the pizza party you are planning with your roommates and the people who asked you if you are my daughter and the all-you-can-eat buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I smile and nod.

A boy calls for you to hurry up. You shrug and say you have to go. I tell you to be good and be safe. You roll your eyes—maybe only a little bit.

You bounce away and in the bright sun it looks like you are taking flight.

This time I don’t cry.