Cutting the Cord

On Saturday, DH and I deposited son #1 in his dorm room at the University of Delaware. It was a loooooong day. The traffic on I-95 was horrendous so it took us longer than expected to get there. When we finally arrived and got out of the car, it was 97 degrees. I kid you not. We carried all his belongings up 2 flights of stairs to his hot and stuffy room. His roommate (who seems like a perfectly normal friendly young man) had already arrived and gotten set up, so he and his family were able to step back and let us cram more stuff into their little room. He had to “gather” with his freshman family at 5:00, so we didn’t have a whole lot of time to help him get things together. It was probably better this way, so I didn’t have the opportunity to linger and avoid the inevitable final hug and goodbye. So at 4:55, the cord was cut. Holy shit, where has the time gone? It can’t possibly be 13 years since I had to bribe him with chocolate milk to get him out of bed on his first day of kindergarten. Or over 18 years since the obstetrician said “it’s a boy!” and I said “I know” because even though I didn’t know, I knew.

I expected to cry a good portion of the ride home, but I didn’t. The cord has been stretching tighter and gotten very frayed, so the final cut was less painful than I anticipated. But despite being exhausted when we finally got home, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of all the things I could have done for him, but didn’t have the time, or wondering what he was doing, and just thinking about how exciting this is. And I just plain miss him. There is definitely a little hole, a piece missing somewhere in my soul. I don’ think that will ever go away, I just have to get better at dealing with it. And I know my DH is experiencing something different. As much as he loves son #1, and I’m sure misses having him around, there was no cord connecting them.

I was fine on Sunday, maybe a little tired from not getting too much sleep. In the evening, I sent an email off to him, suggesting that he put his trunk in his closet instead of under his bed. Even though the cord has been cut, I’m still his mother!