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This one hits home, literally.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be packing up our daughter and then our son as they head off to their respective colleges on the East Coast.
In some respects, it’s a little old hat, as Sarah first left the comfort of our homestead for college two Augusts ago. But now Christopher is joining her in the college ranks.
Our home may never be the same. After all, this will be the first fall in 17 years that we haven’t had at least one of our kids enrolled in a local school, if you count preschool, which happened to be located around the corner from us.
The prospect of them not attending local schools isn’t the only thing that concerns us, of course. It’s more that we will no longer be living under the same roof as our offspring for about two-thirds of the year. That is a foreign concept that brings both a sense of anticipation mixed with a bit of trepidation.
Let’s face it, kids are Job No. 1 for most parents. We put an unbelievable amount of time and effort, and love and care, into raising them right.
My wife deserves the lion’s share of the credit. Our kids hit the jackpot when it comes to mothers. Lynn makes time all the time, serving as their advocate and defender as well as their sounding board and advice-giver. She’s all-in every day.
I’ve always been more of a pick-your-spot kind of dad, with a more laid-back approach that’s maybe afforded them a little extra space.
The combination of our parenting styles seems to have worked pretty well to this point. Both kids are now young adults with well-developed minds and hearts, which they are using in their studies and personal relationships. We’re so proud of them both.
It’s going to be more than a little odd come the end of this month when we drop the kids at their respective schools and return home to the proverbial empty nest. Empty except for us, in much the way it was when we started this grand adventure of marriage a quarter-century ago.
Sure, with Facebook and FaceTime, and Twitter and texting, today’s college students are only as far away as our cellphones.
Still, Lynn and I are both starting to experience that anticipation and trepidation. Will the two of us be too few? Will the dinner table suddenly seem huge? Seriously, will there be enough to talk about?
For my part, I’m definitely in the anticipation camp, looking forward to rediscovering life as a “twosome.” I expect there will be some growing pains as we adjust to a different daily reality than the one we’ve lived for the past two decades. Much as I have enjoyed life with our children, the first years of our marriage were a lot of fun too. We had plenty of adventures with friends, and with each other, as we learned by experience what it was like to share a life together.
It will be fun to rediscover and rekindle some of that magic at a distinctly different time in our lives.
As we embark on our changed home life, I know that we’ll both pray to the Lord for guidance and with real gratitude for getting us this far together. Then I’m sure we’ll also lean on the experience of our friends who are going through the same thing as we are.
Parents of college-age kids in our reading audience are invited to share some of the secrets of success in your marriage as you’ve embarked on the path we are now traveling toward. Perhaps I’ll be able to share a couple examples of that wisdom in a future issue of Catholic New York.
