Originally written in July 1993

My son will soon be going away to college. He can’t wait.  I can’t wait. Our umbilical cord needs cutting quickly before it strangles us both. Don’t get me wrong, I love my son and somewhere deep in his heart I know he loves me too (or at least that’s what I like to tell myself).

He’s a GREAT kid.  Ask anyone who knows him.  They all say, ” He’s a wonderful young man”…”The kind of son I’d love to have”.  I used to think those same thoughts too, but lately our relationship has become very strained.  I really can’t remember the last time we actually said anything to each other that didn’t sound like a full-blown declaration of war.

My son is heavily into another rite of passage in his march to adulthood.  This phase could be unscientifically labelled as “the-I’m-going-to-make-your-life-totally-miserable-so-that-when-I-leave-and-go-off-to-college-I-won’t-miss-you-so-much-and-you-won’t-miss-me-either” syndrome.

The other day we were at a family gathering and my son was discussing his college life with his uncle.  I happened to be in earshot of their conversation. At the end of a rather serious dialogue, he jokingly added that his greatest fear is that when he leaves for college, we’ll move away and won’t leave a forwarding address.  We all laughed.  At that moment, we both knew we would survive this difficult time.

My son will do well.  He has the inner drive to accomplish whatever he sets for himself as a goal.  He has the resilience to never let life keep him down for too long. And as for me, I’ll survive, too.  But it is too bad that there is no Advanced Lamaze class for giving birth to an adult child as there was years ago.  It might make the pain easier to bear!