Friday :)

It's good to be Friday. If I were a day of the week, I think I'd like to be Friday. People look forward to the arrival of Friday. :)

This is a wonderful and weird Friday for me all rolled up into one. Today was the last day of work until the 23rd - so a week off before the school year starts up. I'm ready. For the week off. And probably for the school year to start up again too.

But today is also the day my Mom is undergoing emergency gall bladder surgery, and while they're inside, her hiatal hernia (did I spell that right??) will be repaired. Should be fine, she's got very healthy internal parts generally speaking. But at 78, and with advanced, crippling RA, nothing can be taken for granted. But I'm confident all will be well.

Today is also the day my son is traveling home from his vacation in Orlando, FL. His first time going away without me. He stayed a week with his girlfriend, they had a great time. I'm proud of them both. So next week, he and I will be trying to get ready for him to move away to college.
He'll be fine, and I know somehow all the financing and other details will work out. I'm confident that all will be well for him.

And yet my stomach drops to my knees and feels very sick at the thought of him moving away from home. I know this is normal and I'll be fine too. But at the moment, it's weird. I mean, he can't live with me forever - well ok of course he CAN, but I don't want him too. Well ok, maybe I DO want him too, lol, but I don't think that's in his best interests. :)

aacccck!
I mean, omg how do Mom's cope with this fleeing the nest thing?!
It's ok, I'll be fine, lol.
No cause for alarm here folks, nothing to see, keep moving.
What's a mild panic attack between friends?

I'm a little torn, because I know if my Mom or sister need me I'll be traveling to PA to care for them. But how inconvenient, since this is the week I need to get my son ready for college. And therefore, the last week I'll get to spend with him, living together, in the same house. Maybe forever. It's entirely likely that he'll be spending his time off from college with his girlfriend at her home. And he's talking about working and living with her during his summers off.

But if Mom needs me...
ugh

A little background. Mom was a very independent and busy woman while my siblings and I were growing up. She didn't have much time for us. And I longed for the type of relationship with my Mom that my girlfriends had with their moms - where they did things together like shopping and painting their nails and hair appointments. Girlstuff. And they talked to one another about things. Important things and silly things.

But that wasn't to be, it wasn't my Mom's style, and I was foisted off on my Dad to take care of when he wasn't at work. (Yes, I'm sure that's how I became such a Daddy's girl, lol!)

So, knowing how that lack of an involved mother affected me, how the fact that she wasn't and didn't care to be present in my life hurt my feelings, I set out to parent the way I wished to be parented. Now no, of course my son didn't go in for the girly stuff either, lol. But we have always been close. And we did things together, and we talked. About everything. We understand one another (I'll admit though that he understands me as well as a self-absorbed teen-ager can, lol.)

And I've been able to take care of him and do things for him - things that weren't done for me. And I've been able to help him through trials and tribulations, sometimes only able to hold his hand while he worked it out, but still, the one he's always known he could count on.

So who's going to do that for him when he's away at college? And who's going to keep bad people from hurting him?
Oh I know, it's all up to him now. And I know that's how it should be, and it means I've done a good job as a parent in preparing him to face the world on his own two feet. But I don't want him to go out there.
Ok there I said it. Are you happy now? ;)

sigh

What is so alien to me is his need and desire and readiness to leave home and enter a new phase of his life which is away from me. I never (not ever) wanted to be away from my parents. I lived at home during college. After I was married the first time, we lived close to my parents, and spent our time with them.

And while I think (intellectually) that my son's path is the healthier path (compared to my obsession with my parents) that doesn't mean I understand or "get-it". In my head I do. But in my heart I'm baffled. And in my gut I'm sick.

So I think it's time to keep the head in charge and tell the heart and gut to chill. They need to trust my head. Because it is good and right for a son to move away from Mom and out into the world. Don't we all make fun of the 40 year old virgin living in his Mom's basement? I wouldn't want that for my own son, I want him to have the joy of seeing all the wonder life has in store for him. And if he's prepared and ready to move out to meet the world, then I've done my job, and well.

But you know, there's that tiny voice in the back of my head that keeps asking just what's wrong with a 40 year old virgin living at home in mom's basement, roflmao!

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