Well another milestone is about to be achieved. A month from today is our daughter’s last day of her freshman year of college and we will be moving her back home. where she belongs. It has been an interesting year. On the one hand, it did go very quickly. I thought it would feel as if it was dragging on forever with me missing her so. It didn’t. She has done well, grades-wise; made the Dean’s list and a freshmen honor society that requires a GPA of 3.5 or above. The kid’s brain works just fine.
From a social point of view, after a disastrous first week when she realized that she and her roommate were not going to be a great pairing like her friends got with their roommates and her mom was right that there would be a lot of rich, snobby girls at a private school, she started to find friends. Today, she is quite the social butterfly, with lots of friends and several boys who apparently have made it very clear they want to date her. She seems to be holding back from that. Not sure why, but, she invited one of them to her sorority’s social in 2 weeks and one of the others invited her to his frat’s social this coming weekend. We will see if anything develops from those situations. I think she realizes it would be a LONG summer if she starts dating one of these guys and then hardly/never sees them for 4 months. We shall see. Yesterday, she got her room assignment for next year. She chose to room with one of her close friends and 3 pairs of girlfriends all got rooms right next to each other so she is excited about that. I’m at least grateful that this year’s roommate was not a jerk. She is a sweet girl, just painfully shy and insecure. It could have been far worse.
As with all situations, you have the good, the bad, and the ugly. Luckily, there’s been a lot of good and it sure helps as a parent to deal with the missing them and worries when you see your kid so darn happy, and growing up and learning to be responsible for themself…….kinda. She loves her school, loves being by the beach, and loves her friends and life there. As for the bad, well, I really thought you would not find bad teachers who don’t do their jobs at the college level, but, you do. Her 1st semester English teacher was awful and I was so close to calling the college and complaining. That’s really disappointing. And the cost, well, that is quickly turning what little of my hair that’s not gray, gray. I am really sweating pulling this off for another 3 years. And the ugly, well, 2 lockdowns and 2 evacuations were not fun to deal with. I probably wrote about it on here, but her college made the news on Nov. 1, when one of the football players put a stocking mask on his face and held up 2 girls on campus for their cell phones. We were on the phone with Liv while she hid in her room and then heard shouting in the halls that he was in their dorm. There have been several times in her life that I wanted to trade places with her to protect her from having to deal with something so hard and scary. This was certainly one of them. This was an awful experience. It turned out to be a guy in her dorm, on her floor, and right across the hall from a room she had been hanging out with friends in a LOT. We found out later that it was a fake gun, but that didn’t change what we’d already gone through. This ordeal put me in a funk for quite some time. She had 3 times when she thought her life was in jeopardy in just under 2 months of being there. It was a RUDE awakening for all three of us. Another part of all this that is good, bad, and ugly all at once is her joining her sorority. If I had known more about Greek life, I probably would have forbidden it, and seeing on my Life 360 app, that a girl in her sorority drove up to 89 and 92 miles an hour with my kid in the car on an overnight trip had me blowing my stack and threatening Liv that she was not going back to that school next year, after showing that she did not have the guts/sense to tell the girl to slow down. This was another episode that put me in a funk, one that I have not recovered from. Some of these kids are awful drivers. Tim and I have almost been hit about 4 or 5 times just in the freaking parking lot by these morons. They blow through stop signs, drive through lane intersections without stopping because they see a parking spot they want, cut corners and come into your lane. And my kid is driving all over with a whole bunch of kids and uber drivers all the time. UGH, I hate it.
As I said to my therapist, I feel so uninsulated from bad things happening in my life. I really feel as if one more thing is gonna put me over the edge. She may actually go to three Greek life socials in the next few weeks and 2 of them are in Atlantic City. I am petrified of the driving thing.
It’s so hard being a parent. It’s infinitely harder doing it whilst on the MM roller coaster. Oh, speaking of MM, here’s a twist. My current tenant in my 2 family just broke her lease to move in with her boyfriend. JERK. I just re-rented it to a woman who is quite chatty and private messaged me on Facebook asking for the name of a mover I mentioned to her last week. We got to “talking” and it turns out, her uncle died of MM 13 years ago. I did not tell her about Tim, but I was amazed. I told her I ran a support group for it and have a relative with it. I used to be open with our tenants about it. I’m not anymore. So crazy though. She seems like a really nice woman. She is divorcing a controlling man and looking forward to getting her life back. Lucky for her, he’s rich, so she at least got that, and 2 really cute kids outta the deal.
So, moving on, as usual. One day at a time. Life is hard, and complicated, with moments of greatness mixed in.
Happy spring!!!