Goodbye! Wait, Come Back!

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For the last several months, I've been preparing for a huge life change.

That’s actually not true. Rather, for the past several months, I've known that a huge life change is coming and I wish I could prepare for it, but I can’t. Instead, I cry all the time, I talk to folks who have experienced this change, and I read books about how to prepare for it—that’s actually not true either. I own books that might help me prepare for this change, but two sentences in and I'm crying, so I slam the book shut. I try not to think about it. Except I can’t stop thinking about it.

My huge life change is this: In just a couple of months, two of my three children will move out of our house, and out of our town, to attend two different colleges at opposite ends of the state. And I’m not ready to let them go.

I first started fretting about my kids growing up and moving away when I was still pregnant with my third (and last) baby. At the time, I had a three-year-old daughter, a two-year-old son, and my life revolved around them and their daddy. I recall sitting on the couch at our friend’s house, two weeks before my due date, when the realization first struck me--like sledgehammer to my pregnant belly--that my babies wouldn’t be with me forever. Sure, one wasn't even born yet and it would be almost two decades before they all grew up and moved out, but what better time to agonize over it than at a friend’s dinner party? 

When the thought hit, I felt as though I might hyperventilate. Like a turtle stuck on its back, I struggled to get up off the couch. My husband wasn't there to help me up because he was across the living room playing with our toddlers. He wasn't coming unglued because they were going to move out one day. When I finally managed to stand up, I waddled into the kitchen where I could be alone with my panic. But I wasn’t alone; my pastor was standing next to the sink, and when he saw me he smiled, gave me a side hug, and said, “Rachel! How are you doing?” in that kind, yet cautious voice people use when speaking a ready-to-pop pregnant woman who might be slightly unstable.

I held onto my belly and started to cry. I stood there whimpering, trying to take a deep breath, but the twenty-seven-pound baby inside me was keeping my lungs from expanding. Looking back on that kitchen scenario, I wonder if my pastor thought he was going to have to deliver my baby right there on the linoleum floor. Lucky for him, instead of going into labor, I blurted out, “What am I going to do when they all grow up and leave me?”

My pastor started to laugh (probably from relief that he wasn't going to usher my baby into the world). He touched my shoulder, looked me right in the eye and said, “When they grow up, you’ll be ready to let them go. Trust me.” And so I trusted him; he and his wife had six children of their own, and almost all of them were adults living their own lives. (“Grown and flown” is how some of those books I refuse to read refer to it.)

Over the years, my pastor's words have come to mind every time I think about my kids growing up, moving out, and leaving my husband and me "empty nesters."(Those books have an unending supply of fowl-related references.) Would I really be ready to say goodbye? Would they be? It sure didn’t feel like it, and as the years went by, I started to think my pastor was wrong. 

Recently, our son turned eighteen, and he cannot wait to fly the coop (See? Another one). In fact, sometimes it seems like he’s already gone. Over the past few months, his behavior changed: He gets annoyed by me constantly. He would rather be with his friends than with his family. He’s on edge at home. He gives me a hundred hints a day that he can’t stand it here any more, and one night in April, it all came to a head when he told me exactly how he felt. His words were hurtful to hear, but he needed to say them. The next day was the first time in my life I didn’t get out of bed for an entire day. I didn’t know how to handle any of it; I kept praying, trying to trust that God, as He always does, would give me the grace I needed, but I was becoming depressed. 

And then my sister, who saw my pain, sent me an article that changed everything. Written by a psychologist, the article explains how this family dynamic is normal in the months leading up to teenagers leaving home. The tension and friction are subconscious ways for the teen to detach from the family so that leaving them doesn’t hurt so much. I understood that whether he knows it or not, our boy is protecting himself from the pain of saying goodbye. (The article is fantastic and parents in my situation should take a look: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/the-teenager-with-one-foot-out-the-door/.) 

Our nineteen-year-old daughter will move across the state in eight weeks. We haven’t experienced the same conflicts with her, but I notice her irritation and annoyance with me. She has a healthy desire to go find her way. I see her itching to leave and start her own life, and she will do well I have no doubt. 

But how will I do? I wonder. And then I take a deep breath, and I shift my thoughts, and I stifle a sob, and I imagine the amazing life that awaits my babies outside of this nest, and I think Wow, my pastor was right after all. I'm ready to let them go.

No I’m not.

But I will be.