The Big Leave is officially history. In the last week, we’ve moved our youngest three hours away for his first year of college, our oldest 16 hours away (by van, which was the least expensive way to get her stuff there) for grad school, and left our younger daughter home for her first week of her sophomore year in an in-town university.
Today a new – and long NOT looked forward to – life begins.
Rather than focusing on my emotions, which are pretty raw, I’m choosing to play the denial game today in this (almost) inaugural post on Mom Goes On.
It turns out there are some pretty fascinating sights and sounds on the long drive from Kansas City to Baltimore and back again. So for today’s offering, here’s a run-down of some of the best:
neatorama.com
-God’s Ark of Safety Church – where Noah’s Ark is being rebuilt! (The sign actually said these very words. I’m guessing members are pretty conversant on the topic of doomsday food hoarding).
-Blessed and Highly Favored Shaved Ice stand (think lemonade stand, only run by adults in a very sketchy Baltimore neighborhood)
-First Love Church (religion for those in the throes of adolescent crushes?)
-Taste and See Ice Cream (another offering from the sketchy Baltimore neighborhood)
-Heard on a radio station somewhere between Indianapolis and Terra Haute: an ad for a pawn shop where you can purchase laptops, calculators, and cell phones for all your back-to-school needs – provided you can get over the guilt of knowing someone had to sell THEIR school supplies to make a quick buck.
Funny stuff. Better to laugh than to cry, right? Oh yeah – I’ve been crying, too…
I’m hoping to see some of the blog friends I’ve made on Depression’s Collateral Damage (www.depressionscollateraldamage.wordpress.com) here as Mom Goes On gets going. If you haven’t seen anything from that blog, which I maintain along with my friend and co-author, I hope you’ll check it out, too!
-Amy
Mom Goes On 
Congrats on the new blog! It’s very aptly named ~ much of parenting is simply going on, isn’t it? Not in a heartless or uncaring way, but in a very necessary way.
I read an article today about how, if we’ve done our job right as parents, it leads to the painful task of letting go and sending our kids on their way. (That’s my paraphrase of it, anyway.) My addendum to that is that we must let go incrementally throughout the years leading up to the Big Leave. It’s the gift we give our children.
Hope the days ahead are gentle to you.
Monica
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Thanks, Monica. You’re exactly right about learning to let go – I think it’s probably the most monumental life lesson I’ve ever had to face. And having done so much groundwork over their lifetimes, we can at least take comfort in the fact that they’re all competent and capable with very bright futures ahead.
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Thank you, Angie, for reading and for posting the first comment on this new blog! I agree – it’s really helpful to hear from those who have been through similar experiences. That moment of “wow, I’m not the only one!” can be very powerful.
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Congratulations on your first full post! I am looking forward to seeing what comes on this road of yours. We have one that will be ready for college in two years and the other a couple after that. There is wisdom to be gained by learning from those who begin the journey ahead of us!
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