This is her driving
off. No more school, no more internships, just off to her job while we're off
to the airport. All the other times I've
hugged her goodbye had a different feel. Even though I told her on the eve of
going to college, "this house will feel different the next time you come
back", I knew it wouldn't feel different to ME. And when she jetted off to
LA for the internship, it never had the feel that this was it. Today had that
feel.
Occasionally some
will ask what the hardest part of raising kids is. I suppose that I always felt
it would be different for each parent. I dreaded not getting any sleep during
those first few years. Turned out it wasn't so bad. Despite stacks and stacks of
well meaning books, there really isn't a manual. So you hope that you and a
spouse can make the best decisions so that your kids don't turn out to be an
amplified asshole version of yourself. Sometimes that happens before you
realize it. In our case, I have to give credit to my wife. My oldest child
didn't put me through one tenth of what I did to my parents. So she turned out
really well. And each time we hugged goodbye,
I never worried about her as much. She was ready. Ready for college,
ready to fly across the country, whatever. So basically, everything we've been
preparing her to do, she's going to do it. And all I could do was watch. 22
years in the making. All of our life lessons, lectures, nagging, etc. All so I
could feel like a million bucks AND have a broken heart at the same time. You
want to know the worst part of being a parent? This is it-letting go.
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