my big

 In a few days I shall have a sort of de'ja vous moment as my big and I start to load up the cars and prepare to drive, once again, to Gainesville. This time she will be starting the College of Veterinary Medicine and this time I'm pretty sure things won't be quite so monumental. When she left home in 2020 she moved into her apartment as a naive 18 yr old who like most 18 year olds, knew everything. She was so excited, she had lovely roommates and was moving into a brand spanking new apartment not far from UF and she was giddy. Everything was new. The shopping had been endless but it was all perfect and quite frankly, fucking ridiculous but she and the roomies were delighted and in so turn, was I. Her sister tagged along and helped hide cards and little gifts for her in her room for her to find in the coming days, she too was giddy and could hardly wait to get home as she was claiming her sisters bedroom as her own, it was afterall much bigger.

August turned to October and she missed us so we jumped into the car and met her in Orlando, it was wonderful to see her and we spent a fabulous few hours together and then drove our seperate ways with a promise of see her very, very soon for Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving was amazing, we took the dog with us and spent a chilly few days all together. I noted that she seemed a little snippy, a lot more opinionated and even more independent but that was due to the pressures of school, right? Christmas break came and then another break and my sweet girl seemed highly opinionated. She was still my big but very, very different. I was a little perplexed because she sort of grated on me and me on her and we had always been so close. What was going on?

I met a friend for a meet up. She is unwell and Covid was still looming so we met in a park. Lori has an older child and I love her advice on parenting. I mentioned casually this change in the Big and she said with a deep throated chuckle, oh god I couldn't stand J when he went to college. And that was all I needed to hear, it was going to be okay. She said we mould our kids to be little versions of us and they are, they emulate us perfectly and then they go away and surround themselves with people THEY meet and THEY like and have the gall and audacity to make and form their own opinions and voila, a whole new version of them evolves. So that is what happened and it kept on happening for 3 years. 

The big graduated in 3 years and has taken a gap year to travel but has been home for a reasonable amount of time and during this time her and I have bumped heads once or twice but the most wonderful thing has happened, we have moved on to the next phase of this mother and daughter relationship. We arent quite at the friend stage yet but we are at the respect stage and its wonderful and I love it and I admire and love her so very much.

But I just wish she would clean up her stuff!

In a few days when we drive away, the car won't be packed with only brand new stuff because thats no longer what matters to her, she is focused on her college load and recognises that its going to be a slog.

We've both grown, and I am proud of us both. So if you have a child who is about to to start college, don't panic, it will be OK you raised  them and at the end of the day your core values are there and will always be there but they just need to get shuffled about and put into different slots and reevaluated before being put back almost in the same slot. 

From our first Thanksgiving together in Gainesville

❤ Dawn