Dear Mom,
The summer before my freshman year of college must have been torturous for you. Going with me to Bed Bath and Beyond, buying everything and anything we thought we needed because neither of us fully understood what college in the 21st century would entail, and struggling to figure out the foreign concept of scanning products in Virginia and picking them up in Connecticut. But it was you who knew that, above all else, I was not allowed to cross the Virginia-Maryland Border without a trusty pink bag full of first aid provisions that could supply an entire hospital (Thank you, I used most of it already- how did you know?!). But the more and more our basement accumulated with my “definitely not gonna remotely fit in dorm room” mountain of stuff, you became sadder and sadder and more and more determined to make sure that my sheltered only-child life would not become a detriment as I entered the world of reality. You were unselfishly assisting your little girl to leave you - metaphorically closing the door on the seemingly unreturnable stage of life that we had grown so accustomed to. That summer had become all about me and my transition to college, but what about you and your transition?
It is no secret that freshman year of college is hard, to say the least — littered with emotional roller coasters that are spearheaded by terrific bouts of homesickness. But this experience is only associated with freshmen, not with their courageous mothers, especially those of only children like you. These only child mothers must return to an empty home, create new routines and face the vacated spot at the dinner table, sick with worry about whether their first and last child can survive his or her new world.
I know you have been avoiding my room and that it took all the willpower you had to feverishly clean it before I came back for breaks, wanting the house to look as if I was the most important guest who has ever entered it. I know you always run to the phone whenever I call, silently praying that it isn’t another one of my emotionally charged updates where I begin by saying, “you were right.” And I know that you’ve tried to make my dog fill the void by the stories you tell and the tricks you teach her and by the fact that she is either conveniently sitting on your lap or sleeping at your feet when I call.
Our own little world of just you and me, full of long talks in your bed, take out Chinese food when Dad was on business trips, and long hikes in the park were shattered. But the shards of our relationship are not lost, in fact, it has evolved since college commenced, and I just want you to know that I appreciate you, at least, a thousand times more than I had before this great college journey began.
I want you to know that I will be all right. I will be okay. It is inevitable that I will make mistakes and learn lessons about life, people and myself that can only be learned from first-hand experience. But even in the hardest of times, I will always come back to you for advice and comfort, maybe not always as a mother, but as the best friend that you have become. You’ve taught me everything that you can, and I want you to breathe and do things that you love and, as the mother of an only child, enjoy the quiet that my extremely loud country music does not permit you to have when I come back for breaks. I may not be your “little girl” anymore by age, but at 5 feet 3 inches, I can sure maintain the literal definition of the term.
Thank you for unconditionally sticking by me every step of my life.
Love,
Your Only Child
