The Last Wednesday Morning

This morning I woke before the sun. We’re having a heatwave in Seattle and all night I slept fitfully. It seemed like I sweat and twisted through complicated, weird dreams all night in our hot, stuffy bedroom. Getting up was a relief from the stagnant cage I’d spent the night in.

I made my coffee and went out to sit on the deck. The cool air from the lake dried the baby hairs sticking to the back of my neck. I heard the crows having their morning caw-chats on the power lines circling my house, down the street geese honked on the lake, a tiny flock of bushtits fluttered on the bush below the deck, and a racoon rustled its way along the edge of our rock wall.

It was still a little dark as I took my first sip of coffee and, as I watched the sun coming up over the lake, warm and orange, already bringing with it a warning of the heat to come, I felt the heaviness of impending change.

Upstairs, my partner was still asleep. Downstairs, my daughter was tucked into her bed in her messy room, much cooler in the dark, damp basement. “This is the last Wednesday that my daughter will be asleep in her room,” I thought to myself as I watched the sky lighten.

This last Wednesday at home is a milestone. And next week, on a Wednesday, I will be moving my daughter into her dorm room 1300 miles away, with a girl from Texas, whose parents will be saying goodbye to their daughter too. Another milestone.

Milestone — the symbol of another mile traveled, a marker of time and distance and change. I’ve thought a lot about how I would feel when this day finally came, when my daughter left home. I’ve been preparing for this moment, this particular milestone, for a long time.

With each milestone, I imagine my daughter moving further away. From me.

And she is. With each milestone, she moves further away from the place where she started. Each milestone marks a moment. With each milestone, there is an end to something, but also an opening to something new. With each opening, my daughter gets closer to where she is going, wherever that may be.

Next week when I drop my daughter off at college, say goodbye, and fly back home to Seattle, she will be on her own. That milestone will mark the end of her living at home. And it will mark the beginning of her living on her own. It will mark the end of daily care and contact from her parents and the beginning of more responsibility.

And, on my path, I have my own milestones. When I leave my daughter at college, I will come home. I can already imagine her room, empty of her favorite things, still and quiet. I expect that I’ll feel the fullness of the sadness that’s been peeking its head up like a prairie dog for the last six anticipatory months. And I imagine I’ll feel worried because that old friend is always with me. But what else? I wonder what new openings will come from my daughter’s absence, from the quiet emptiness of her room.

Far away, in the middle of the country, as my daughter experiences an avalanche of “firsts” — first time living with a roommate, first philosophy class, first time taking care of all her own meals and laundry, first time without parents nagging her to make sure she doesn’t forget to [fill in the blank] — I will be back home, experiencing the milestones that come from an empty nest.

This is a big change for sure, but I feel mostly ready. Being a mom has always been this way — milestone after milestone, a series of endings and beginnings, opening new paths along the way.

I have a lot of questions. Will my daughter come back to visit often? Will she ever move back to Seattle? I feel a little scared and a little sad because I don’t know the answer to these questions. Her path is full of milestones, destination unknown.

But if I’m honest, I wouldn’t want it any other way.