When my daughter went off to college I was physically ill every evening when I came home from work and she wasn't in her room. I laid there a cried and held my stomach ache. Apparently my husband was telling all my friends this and he didn't know what to do to help me. He missed our daughter too. So on a happy hour Friday after work I had 3 martinis and broke down and cried in front of everyone and got it all out of my system. My daughter heard thru her friends and was glad she wasn't in town to witness it. Lol. Yeah. Not my finest moment but I don't care. Love my babies.❤️🥰
Why did this make me tear up so hard??? My baby didn't take her truck to NYC and it was parked around the side of the house I could plainly see out my living room windows. That had always been my "ooh, Sasha's home!" (Her room has a separate entrance so I wouldn't always know hahahaha.) After two weeks of "ooh, Sasha's home! OMG NO SHE'S NOT [uncontrollable weeping]," I made my husband move the damned truck out of my line of sight. ;(
That was me with my youngest daughter's convertible Mustang. She left it in the driveway because she didn't need it at school in Seattle. I made my husband put a car cover over it... because of weather. Weather in SoCal. Right.
Her departure from the nest as the last girl to go might have hit me even harder than her big sister's (which was tear inducing because she was the first of my babies to leave the nest).
You'all better hold onto your hat cuz (as they say in Jamaica*) one day two more eyes are going to show up at your place, and they'll likely look just like yours.
*Nothing better than 4 eyes in the same room/together.
The mystery of it all is crazy, but when a grandchild creates another moment that simply takes your breath away (those are the moments most memorable) you'll become a crazed baby everything shopper at Target/Walmart.
Not me, but I have friends (now distant friends since they have the grandchild and I don't <yet>) who simply lose their minds with enthusiasm that they can shop the kid into a perfect human dressed up specimen.
Kodak must be rolling in the grave knowing that an entire industry of taking a grandkid's pic every 35 seconds has been replaced by digital.
If you thought TikTok Cat pics were over the top, try talking sense into "Gammy/Mammy/Mamama/list is endless" that the grandparents 'swear' they heard the kid utter 'their' name first.
Sells a lot of US Saving's Bonds (worthless investment of course) I guess, since eventually the ol' folks need to stop spending the entire family's downstream investment portfolio/estate on size 'up to 6 months' (which never really fit anyone) clothing/outfits/hats/booties/footies/squeeky toys/etc.
Want to know why China is winning the economic race (to the bottom)?
It's all the baby s$!t grandparents can't NOT purchase.
At least it's keeping the US Postal Service in business for long distances.
Oh my God, me too! I was like, "Have I got time for this right now?". Especially as peri-menopause has me in her grips and I am UNMEDICATED and trying to give up coffee and carbs, for the love of all that is sane!!
It's nine am and my teenager is playing (horrible but I'll never tell her), music in the kitchen while making me breakfast. Bless her. I adore her. And she still does me for some reason I cannot comprehend, but I lie to myself is because I Home Educate her, (that is quite honestly the only way to motivate myself).
And, just like I thought she'd never see a night through in her own bed, I never thought that she'd be this age, and now I know that "next week", she'll be striking out on her own. And it'll just be me and the man whose love made her happen. Another human I adore. But omg, no one tells you about children. How they open up a chamber of your heart you didn't know existed. (And maybe it is just my parents, but I don't have the feeling that I did that for them).
Anyway, I went down this utterly beautiful lane through your memories and feelings and it was so compelling and evocative, that I am now sitting here regretting my cheapness in buying Lidl brand tissues. And hoping I can pass off my soggy state as hayfever, (even though I have been shamelessly boasting about the fact that I have masterer it with herbal supplements, lol).
I just completed a 12 day cross country road trip with my just graduated from HS daughter. Figured life will only get more complicated and busy, so if not now, when? It was wonderful for both of us. Now, onto the next chapter...
The best advice I can give to any new parent is to be more actively engaged in every aspect of your kids’ lives, even when you think “they’ve got this”, because they don’t. And by the time you realize that, they’ve made preventable errors. And after too many of those, you’re not the most influential person in their lives anymore. That happens over time regardless, so don’t let it happen any faster than it should.
“Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it.”
This made me weep last year and way harder this year because my eldest is filling out applications now 😭😭 i blubbered through this whole thing. My eyes are going to be leaking for a long time after reading this I think. You NAILED the pre- college part, Jenna, and I am sure I will relate to the after toooooo 😢😢😭😭😭😭😭
😭😭😭 I'm not crying sad tears, 🥹 I do believe they are glad tears. Only you know how to open those floodgates of recollections. Great essay; they always come home.
Your family is beautiful and you and your husband did something right raising them , since they aren’t living in your basement! 👏🏻 💥. I miss my sons every single day . 💔… This was a real tear jerker 😂, in a good way💞
OMG!!! You made a grown man cry reliving his two sons and his empty nest. And you have to keep all those wonderful memories and times with them because you never know if it will be the last time. I know that from experience and now my nest is emptier. Thank you for that essay I really needed it right now.
Well, yes, I am definitely tearing up remembering when I dropped off my oldest daughter at Mizzou exactly 15 years ago, but also because of your beautiful style in telling this. And actually, it wasn't the dropping off so much because, I mean, our family went and we had a great time for a day. Then, when it was time to say good-bye, my younger daughter and I headed back to Texas (my then-wife had to leave from MO on a business trip). The two of us even had a fun time, intentionally driving through Carrie Underwood's hometown in OK before finally arriving home. Once we got home...it all hit me, all at once, and I bawled uncontrollably for probably a half hour. Finally, I came to grips with reality, and I found I could be so happy that my oldest was, indeed, prepared and was starting a whole new, exciting chapter of her life, and I would still be there no matter what.
When my daughter went off to college I was physically ill every evening when I came home from work and she wasn't in her room. I laid there a cried and held my stomach ache. Apparently my husband was telling all my friends this and he didn't know what to do to help me. He missed our daughter too. So on a happy hour Friday after work I had 3 martinis and broke down and cried in front of everyone and got it all out of my system. My daughter heard thru her friends and was glad she wasn't in town to witness it. Lol. Yeah. Not my finest moment but I don't care. Love my babies.❤️🥰
Why did this make me tear up so hard??? My baby didn't take her truck to NYC and it was parked around the side of the house I could plainly see out my living room windows. That had always been my "ooh, Sasha's home!" (Her room has a separate entrance so I wouldn't always know hahahaha.) After two weeks of "ooh, Sasha's home! OMG NO SHE'S NOT [uncontrollable weeping]," I made my husband move the damned truck out of my line of sight. ;(
It is Kenny Chesney's song There Goes My Life or the Trace Adkins song...You're Gonna Miss This. They still make me cry.
That was me with my youngest daughter's convertible Mustang. She left it in the driveway because she didn't need it at school in Seattle. I made my husband put a car cover over it... because of weather. Weather in SoCal. Right.
Her departure from the nest as the last girl to go might have hit me even harder than her big sister's (which was tear inducing because she was the first of my babies to leave the nest).
🤗🤗🤗
Jenna, et al,
You'all better hold onto your hat cuz (as they say in Jamaica*) one day two more eyes are going to show up at your place, and they'll likely look just like yours.
*Nothing better than 4 eyes in the same room/together.
The mystery of it all is crazy, but when a grandchild creates another moment that simply takes your breath away (those are the moments most memorable) you'll become a crazed baby everything shopper at Target/Walmart.
Not me, but I have friends (now distant friends since they have the grandchild and I don't <yet>) who simply lose their minds with enthusiasm that they can shop the kid into a perfect human dressed up specimen.
Kodak must be rolling in the grave knowing that an entire industry of taking a grandkid's pic every 35 seconds has been replaced by digital.
If you thought TikTok Cat pics were over the top, try talking sense into "Gammy/Mammy/Mamama/list is endless" that the grandparents 'swear' they heard the kid utter 'their' name first.
Sells a lot of US Saving's Bonds (worthless investment of course) I guess, since eventually the ol' folks need to stop spending the entire family's downstream investment portfolio/estate on size 'up to 6 months' (which never really fit anyone) clothing/outfits/hats/booties/footies/squeeky toys/etc.
Want to know why China is winning the economic race (to the bottom)?
It's all the baby s$!t grandparents can't NOT purchase.
At least it's keeping the US Postal Service in business for long distances.
Best
So heartfelt. So heartbreaking. So heartwarming. ❤️
😭😭😭 I read this masterpiece of a tear jerker before so I dont know why I just did that to myself again! ❤️❤️🤗
Hahaha sorry? ;) (I sob every time I read it and I WROTE it!!!)
Oh my God, me too! I was like, "Have I got time for this right now?". Especially as peri-menopause has me in her grips and I am UNMEDICATED and trying to give up coffee and carbs, for the love of all that is sane!!
It's nine am and my teenager is playing (horrible but I'll never tell her), music in the kitchen while making me breakfast. Bless her. I adore her. And she still does me for some reason I cannot comprehend, but I lie to myself is because I Home Educate her, (that is quite honestly the only way to motivate myself).
And, just like I thought she'd never see a night through in her own bed, I never thought that she'd be this age, and now I know that "next week", she'll be striking out on her own. And it'll just be me and the man whose love made her happen. Another human I adore. But omg, no one tells you about children. How they open up a chamber of your heart you didn't know existed. (And maybe it is just my parents, but I don't have the feeling that I did that for them).
Anyway, I went down this utterly beautiful lane through your memories and feelings and it was so compelling and evocative, that I am now sitting here regretting my cheapness in buying Lidl brand tissues. And hoping I can pass off my soggy state as hayfever, (even though I have been shamelessly boasting about the fact that I have masterer it with herbal supplements, lol).
Thanks and blessings, as ever Jenna. x
Thank you for sharing this and I’m so glad it moved you. Enjoy every minute with that girl and for God’s sake why are you giving up coffee???
I also read it before, but it's worth reading again, because who doesn't love crying onto her keyboard?
I thought the same!!
Warning: Flash Flood Alert
Wowzers! You nailed it: long days, short years.
I just completed a 12 day cross country road trip with my just graduated from HS daughter. Figured life will only get more complicated and busy, so if not now, when? It was wonderful for both of us. Now, onto the next chapter...
How special!!! ☺️
The best advice I can give to any new parent is to be more actively engaged in every aspect of your kids’ lives, even when you think “they’ve got this”, because they don’t. And by the time you realize that, they’ve made preventable errors. And after too many of those, you’re not the most influential person in their lives anymore. That happens over time regardless, so don’t let it happen any faster than it should.
“Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 CSB
Omigosh, you've handed me a lens through which I see each of my children individually for what feels like the first time. Thank you for that gift.
Beautiful. Poignant. On target.
Written like only a mother could, Jenna. You must be proud of your young women!
They are beyond incredible. I won the daughter lottery 100000%!!
Awwww. that's a wonderful feeling, I'm sure!
Started, but paused..... may not be man enough to read this.
This made me weep last year and way harder this year because my eldest is filling out applications now 😭😭 i blubbered through this whole thing. My eyes are going to be leaking for a long time after reading this I think. You NAILED the pre- college part, Jenna, and I am sure I will relate to the after toooooo 😢😢😭😭😭😭😭
You weren’t kidding on the Kleenex…
😭😭😭 I'm not crying sad tears, 🥹 I do believe they are glad tears. Only you know how to open those floodgates of recollections. Great essay; they always come home.
Yes, they do! Amen.
Your family is beautiful and you and your husband did something right raising them , since they aren’t living in your basement! 👏🏻 💥. I miss my sons every single day . 💔… This was a real tear jerker 😂, in a good way💞
Thanks Brandon! Maybe you ARE my bro??? :)
😉💖
Our job as parents is roots and wings. I found the roots were easier…
OMG!!! You made a grown man cry reliving his two sons and his empty nest. And you have to keep all those wonderful memories and times with them because you never know if it will be the last time. I know that from experience and now my nest is emptier. Thank you for that essay I really needed it right now.
Well, yes, I am definitely tearing up remembering when I dropped off my oldest daughter at Mizzou exactly 15 years ago, but also because of your beautiful style in telling this. And actually, it wasn't the dropping off so much because, I mean, our family went and we had a great time for a day. Then, when it was time to say good-bye, my younger daughter and I headed back to Texas (my then-wife had to leave from MO on a business trip). The two of us even had a fun time, intentionally driving through Carrie Underwood's hometown in OK before finally arriving home. Once we got home...it all hit me, all at once, and I bawled uncontrollably for probably a half hour. Finally, I came to grips with reality, and I found I could be so happy that my oldest was, indeed, prepared and was starting a whole new, exciting chapter of her life, and I would still be there no matter what.
Reality can be lonely.
Yes, at times it can be that way, but seeing reality in light of the bigger picture of God being in control and not me, makes it palatable.