I dropped my youngest off at her first apartment yesterday.
Bittersweet.
She is surprising me in so many ways. So responsible.
If you had asked me about her perhaps a year ago, I would have said she would never make it.
She will begin her first semester next week.
She is a bit nervous but ready. She has gone through a gamut of emotion this week. Crying emotionally, before we left home, saying she was not ready to leave home. Excitement at walking the campus, purchasing books, decorating her new temporary home.
I am not sure it has hit me yet, how empty this house will be. There is one left. My middle child. She is rarely home herself.
The house seems so much bigger.
Moving her felt as though we were moving a circus. packed until the poor truck could hold no more. And yet, most of her room is still as she left it. Most of her furnishings are here ready to see her at holiday breaks. The difference being no clothes on the floor. The room is the cleanest it has been since she took over the room when her brother moved to the basement.
I will miss waiting up for her at nights. I will miss her sleepy face with tousled hair waking on the weekends looking for coffee. I will miss snuggling with her on winter Sundays while watching movies.
And yet, I cannot wait for her to experience this new phase in her life. I cannot wait for our Sunday morning scheduled calls to catch up. Or other unscheduled calls when she needs just a little bit of help from home.
We (my father and I) tried to make her stay as comfortable as we could. Take away the stresses that would hold her back from having the most rewarding and fun experience thus far.
It is not easy on her. It is not easy on her mamma either. But it is also so exciting.
