The Great Sadness

This just in at 11:52 a.m.: TennTech just called me and they have her a dorm room and a room mate. This is what I've been praying for all week. Praise God! Lawnmower Man is loading up the car with the pink and brown comforter, the mini fridge and the rug as I write this. We're off in just a few! Now go on and read my crazy blog post and laugh....I'm here all week!


I know that is a line is from the book, The Shack, which I did not like by the way. And I assure you that I’m not trying to be overly dramatic and I’m not trying to say that my firstborn child leaving for college is the same thing as someone having their child abducted…because it’s not. I know that. But I don’t have any other words to describe my feelings today. I’m sad. Like wanna go to bed tonight and not get out of bed tomorrow kind of sad.


It’s not my child is going to mother’s day out for the first time kind of sad.




It’s not my child is going to kindergarten for the first time kind of sad.

It’s not my child is going to middle school for the first time kind of sad.
(Middle school pictures are hard to find.)

It’s not my child is going to high school for the first time kind of sad. (She wouldn't stand in front of the IHS sign like I wanted her to on the first day of high school.)

It’s not my child is going to graduate kind of sad.

It doesn't feel like any of those days.

It’s a... I’m going to leave my daughter in a hotel room in a town she doesn’t know kind of sad.

Yuck! I guess it's slightly better then the Days Inn on Dickerson Road. (I stole that line from Radke.)


Because there aren't enough dorm rooms kind of sad.


It’s a... I can’t unpack her and get her all settled kind of sad.


It’s a... I can’t organize and label all of her stuff kind of sad.


It's a...I can’t put her pink and brown sheets that match her pink and brown striped comforter on her extra long twin bed kind of sad.
It's a...I can’t put her pink and brown striped rug on the cold dorm room floor kind of sad.


Those are all just things that needed to be done. By me. For her. To make me feel better. To make me feel in control when I drive away and leave her there.


And then there is the sleep. The change of sleeping in a house that doesn’t have my child, in a bed, down the hall kind of sad.


And then there is the change. The change of when she does come back home she will look older and be much wiser. She will be influenced by teachers that I’ve never laid eyes on. She will hang out with people that she hasn’t known since the first grade. She will be different then she is today. She might even, heaven forbid, become a Democrat. There’s no way of knowing these things. (No offense to the democrats. God loves you too.)

It’s not all happening like I planned it in my head. Like I needed it to be. And I am sad, oh, yes I am. Sad I am.

P.S. Please don’t leave me a comment in a form of poem that reads: mother’s hold their children’s hands blah…blah…blah..for a short while…but their hearts 4 ever blah blah blah…you get the picture. I will throw up all in your inbox if you do.