Friends are you ready for your kids to grow up?? The whole time my kids have been growing up I have been ready to see what path they will take, what adventures they will go on finding their way to adulthood. Am I even ready??
I have to confess – I AM NOT READY! (insert tantrum of a 4 year old here)
We moved our son into an apartment in Orlando when he was 18. This sounds dreamy when it comes to parenting and getting your child – or young adult – out of your house and in the beginning stages of independence. However, we moved him into an apartment complex that wasn’t in the best part of town. Although it wasn’t the worst either, but it was a one bedroom apartment in a complex full of families, singles, and people who in general were scary to me because he was my oldest baby. It wasn’t a college type apartment complex so my fear was multiplied. He knew NOT ONE PERSON within 30 minutes of the apartment. His closest friends were 45 minutes away; closest family almost 2 hours.
What were we thinking?? Honestly (and I am being completely honest here) I thought he would live with us until he was 35 years old and moving him like this was us kicking him out of the nest to fly. Seriously! He was that kid gaming all night long with dreams of becoming a professional gamer with sponsors like Twitch. I imagined him living in his dark bedroom with multiple gaming monitors and me taking plates of food to him like room service.
Just so you know we didn’t make him move. It was his idea, after attending prom with friends and finding out all of their real plans for their near future he decided he wanted to move to Orlando. I swear! He woke up the day after prom and started planning. That day I promised him we would move him by October and we did. Even when we were driving to Orlando, I was still not even ready.
The weekend of the big move we carried all of his crap stuff up 3 flights of stairs, fully stocked his apartment with food, toiletries, detergent, cleaners etc.. When it was time to unpack we were asked to leave. WHAT?!? Yes, you read that correctly. We were actually asked to leave because he didn’t want us to help unpack. He said his friends were coming to help him. I still cringe at this. How could he deprive me of unpacking his stuff and helping him organize? Why didn’t he want his mommy enabling him??
Apparently he knew what he needed. Did you read that? Let me say it again and emphasize it. He knew what he needed. He knew it before I did. He was ready. I’m still not even ready, but he was, and still is, and THAT is what matters. It was the long, sad drive home that I knew we had done our job as parents. We know our job as parents and role models isn’t done, but we reached a huge milestone which was bittersweet.
Thankfully I did the driving on the way home from Orlando otherwise I would have cried the entire ride home. He has lived in Orlando for 2 years now and I am still not even ready.
Am I going to be ready when our daughter is ready to move out? I can honestly say no way! I won’t tell her that though because she is talking about moving to another county for a while to see the world and marry a prince. Who am I to hold her back? Besides if I am not even ready – she will be and that is all that matters.
