Nostalgia is defined as a sentimental yearning for the
happiness of a former place or time. As parents, there is no end to the list of
things for which we are nostalgic. I’m
not just referring to childhood milestones – first steps, first day of
kindergarten, first lost tooth, and graduating high school. After dropping my oldest daughter at college
this weekend, I found myself nostalgic driving past the ER were only last week
I had taken her for her third round of rabies shots after being exposed to a
bat that had made its way into her room.
While we sat around the ER I had seized the opportunity to retell her
birth story yet again since we were at the same hospital. I’m only human. Walking through our house I’m
nostalgic for the crack in the bathroom floor where tiny baby spiderlings had
once hatched a la the ending to Charlotte’s Web. My daughters, very young at
the time, were horrified and insisted I kill them immediately with ant spray,
which I did. Seeing them die made both girls erupt into fresh tears that I had
killed all the cute little baby spiderlings. Ah, motherhood.
I can’t bring myself to clean her room that she tore apart
as she packed for school because she won’t be here to mess it up again for
quite a while. I never thought I’d be
nostalgic for the mess, but passing by her room in its usual state makes it
feel like she’ll be home any minute. This is the room that was once a playroom
where she and her sister had endless tea parties in the play house and where
she had her first sleepover party in first grade. It was the room where she lost
her first tooth when her best friend accidentally knocked it out while they
played. Once it became her bedroom, it
also became the site of various teen dramas, many slammed doors and fights
through the locked door over me being the “worst mother ever!” over some
privilege I denied or other maternal transgression. It was the room where her boyfriend staged a senior
prom-posal that involved a lot of balloons and decorations and I had to do a
cleaning blitz fifteen minutes prior to his arrival so it would be photo-worthy
after all his efforts when she walked in.
Leaving her at college was not easy and it helped that I
stayed a couple of nights in a nearby hotel so it was a gradual release. We arrived
a day early and did some shopping and had a lovely family dinner. Friday was
move-in day and a bustle of activity, unpacking and setting her all up. I was in and out running errands for her then returned to the hotel and dinner with my younger daughter. Saturday was the last day. I took her to the
bookstore to buy all her books (and the lovely bracelet pictured) and then the
three of us went to lunch. Back in
the dorm parking lot we said our final, tearful good-bye and group hug. The
time had come.
There is not a single spot in my house or town that doesn’t
spark some memory of her growing up, and it’s all the small, silly everyday moments, both happy and sad, that string together like beads on a necklace and add up
to a childhood. The little ordinary moments add up to an extraordinary little life. Cheers to the next chapter of mine.
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