Two down, one to go

My oldest child graduated from high school on the first of this month. Due to a serious bout of senioritis, this normally good student just quit doing the work and barely passed her final semester. After all the the other things I've worried about most of her life -- and I excel at worrying! -- this was unexpected and most unwelcome. When she walked down the aisle at the National Shrine with her perfectly straightened hair and big smile, I felt far more relief than pride!

So we came home, had a party, she packed up the next day and went off to her job as a camp counselor for the rest of the summer. In August she'll be home for a couple of days and then off TO COLLEGE. All my worrying about her grades obscured this important fact until she drove away and I walked by her room, now empty but for some boxes to be stored in the attic. Ohmygod, she's gone!! Every time it hit me for the next week I burst into tears, including in public and while lying awake in the middle of the night. This child who has been my constant companion, physically, mentally and emotionally for almost 19 years has flown the coop and all I could think was, "There are so many things I still haven't told her. So many things I forgot to share!"

Of course, she hasn't exactly been an open, willing receptacle for my many pearls of knowledge these past few years. In fact, her most frequent expression lately was, "OK, can you stop talking now, you're annoying me." For some reason -- probably those pesky traits of independent thinking and rising to a challenge that I've tried to beat out of her all these years, ha ha -- she just wasn't dying to hear all my sage advice and warnings of what to avoid as she sets out on this new adventure -- go figure!

So I've decided to begin a penpal relationship with my daughter, almost assuredly one-way. I'm going to write her a nice long letter once a week, the old fasioned way, with pen and paper. That way I can express myself to my heart's content, share all my hopes and dreams for her in a nonthreatening way that she can't interrupt. And she can enjoy getting a real letter in the mail (a rarity anymore) and regale her friends with how crazy her mother is. She already told me to keep it clean as she intends to share them with her pals -- apparently even my emails have been a source of great amusement during her summers at camp. Last year, when she started dating a fellow counselor, I sent several frantic emails about remembering who she was, not doing anything she wasn't absolutely comfortable with, and above all being careful. She responded with lots of LOL's, called me psycho and said they had only been going out for two days so I could relax. But you can never be too careful or proactive, that's what I always say!