She's Leaving Home

It's my favourite Beatles song, "She's Leaving Home" but it makes me cry.  The beautiful string arrangement always brings a small tear to my eye. The two-part chorus with 'She's leaving home' interspersed with the parents thoughts, 'We gave her most of our lives, we sacrificed most of our lives, we gave her everything money could buy, Bye Bye," always made me think how hard it would be for parents when their child left home.

Today, we dropped our daughter off at University and for me it wasn't hard at all.  I hadn't been looking forward to it and felt I wasn't quite ready.  But today was a beautiful sunny day and with the car packed like a game of Jenga (The Long Suffering Husband is the Packing King) we set off up the M1 to Leicester.  We shared the motorway with many other parents and their offspring doing exactly the same thing and it was quite interesting to spot the duvets, ironing boards, huge multi-packs of crisps, George Foreman Health Grills and other paraphernalia that seem to be essential for student life.

We had been given loads of advice about student life. Useful things like:
1. Have a nice laundry bag so you can talk to people about it in the laundrette.
2. Get your parents to make your bed when you first get there so that your room feels homely straight away.
3. Get a doorstop, so you can keep your door open and be friendly.
4.  Steal a traffic cone (not sure about this one!)
5. You can still eat mouldy bread (just scrape it off!)
6. Take lots of photos with you.

Possibly because DMU is a great University and she has made a brilliant choice (and because the sun was shining) moving in was very simple.  We were met at the car park by a herd of orange T-shirts who carried things from the car to her room, chatting and smiling the whole time.  The atmosphere was wonderful, full of excitement and people making friends all in the same position.  It reminded me of my first day moving into halls, talking too much and making friends for life.  And as a mother I stopped worrying and remembered how much fun she was going to have. Facebook has allowed her to 'talk' to her flatmates before she moved in and they all seem like really nice girls from the few "hellos," we shared.

Apart from leaving an emotional sibling with her when we moved the car everything went very smoothly.

Will I miss her?  Of course I will.  I will miss the chats and the nail varnish and the person who says, "Oooh cake.......I've got a headache now," but I know that she is ready and that's all that matters.
Now, it's just me in the house with 3 (if you include the dog) boys and I'm the only one who can't pee standing up (except, of course, when I cough, laugh or sneeze).