University life

Buddy-child has done the unthinkable.  She has been accepted into University.  Buddy will be the first person in her family to go to post-secondary school.  She is likely the first person in her family to have finished high school for that matter.  She has been working hard to bring her marks up high enough to go and it’s starting to pay off.  She applied to four schools and one has already offered her a spot.  It’s her second choice school and according to her, even if all the other schools say ‘no’, she will be quite content to attend this school since it was originally her first choice.  She’s not doing this because anyone is making her, she is doing this because it is what she wants to do.  Mind you, it would be difficult to be living with me and not be in school because I’m kind of pushy that way but still, she didn’t have to live with me, she didn’t have to stay after step-daughter bailed and she certainly didn’t have to go back to school for this extra year to make it all happen.  But she did.  She has done very, very well.  She is extremely proud of herself (rightfully so) and excited for all the new possibilities ahead of her.  She is still scared to leave home, scared to move into residence, scared to think about starting all over again in school somewhere else but now that her life is stable, she feels capable of facing those fears.

Even teenagers need someone to count on as they learn how to face new experiences.  They still need that ‘sameness’ and the reliability of routine and their people being who they expect them to be.  While we push our kids to live up to who we want them to be, they need us to live up to who they think we are in order for it to work.  It really is a two-way street.

It’s going to be very weird saying goodbye to this last child and finally having a house with no one else in it but me!  I wonder if this time I’ll finally go through that whole empty nest thing that people talk about.