I’ll admit it: I was a rotten teenager. I was the one your parents warned you about–the antisocial, punk-rock poseur. Actually, though I was pretty rebellious for small-town Iowa, I imagine my antics wouldn’t have caused much commotion in a bigger city. I shaved part of my hair and dyed it purple. I wore black leggings, black miniskirts, and Sex Pistol t-shirts. I smoked cigarettes, of all varieties, and shoplifted rolling papers from the local grocery store. All in all, I was a parent’s nightmare–but not the worst of the worst.
Oddly enough, despite all of this rebellious behavior (and the many “I hate yous” that I hurled at my parents throughout my stormy adolescence), I still wasn’t ready to cut the cord when it came time for college. I did not want to go. It was as simple as that. Looking back on it, I just don’t think I was emotionally ready for college, but I went because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re the 18-year-old daughter of two educators. My dad recalls that I sobbed (while hurtling down the highway at breakneck speeds, pressing harder on the gas pedal as my sobs increased in volume) during the entire three-hour car ride to Beloit College, but I don’t remember much about the drive. Or my entire first semester at Beloit, for that matter. It was so horrible and difficult that I think I blanked out much of it in my memory.
After a difficult, lonely semester enduring the “cheese breezes” of industrial Beloit, I transferred back home to Luther College, where my father taught, and then to the UI, where I finally completed my undergraduate and graduate degrees. Overall, though, attending college wasn’t the most wonderful experience for me. I didn’t make as much of it as I should have–partly because I found it so unsettling to be on my own.
Last night, Ava and I had our first college talk. We were discussing her piggy bank, which she likes to take to bed with her, and planning what she should do with all of her change when the bank was full. I told her that we should take her money to the bank and add it to her college savings fund. That sparked a discussion about what college was–and what she would do in college. I told her that she would probably go away to college and live on her own. She asked, “I wouldn’t live with you and Dad?” I said, “Well, no, you’d probably live on your own, or with a friend, in an apartment or a dorm room.” She was silent for a long time, and then, in the smallest, saddest voice, she asked me, “Could I still come home for lunch?”
At that point, my heart broke open and flooded my body with the most ferocious, tender, bittersweet love that I have ever known. Because, the truth is that I don’t want my daughter to go to college. I want her to stay with me, small and sweet like this, forever. But I know that this kind of thinking–this resistance to change and to time’s relentless march–is what prevented me from truly experiencing college in the way I should have. And I know that, as Ava’s mom, my job is to help her grow into an independent person who can embrace new experiences while still retaining a connection to family and a sense of place. No small task, it seems.
At the end of our discussion last night, Ava definitively informed me that she would not be attending college. She said, “College is too noisy, Mom. People are shouting there and banging on drums, and I wouldn’t like it, so I’m not going to go. I’m going to stay here with you and Dad.” (I guess the apple really doesn’t fall too far from the tree.)
As she was falling asleep, I laid in bed with her, gently kissing her fine, blonde hair. I thought about my own mother and her first baby, with the same fine, blonde hair. This baby had grown through so many phases. She’d changed from a bookworm, to a teen rebel, to a serious graduate student, to a professional writer, and–finally–to a mother.
Just yesterday, I was back at home in Decorah for lunch with my family. It was Easter Sunday–and my mother’s birthday. She turned 67, exactly three decades and one month older than I am. I gazed at my mother across the table: She and Ava were opening birthday presents together.
I think I’ve figured out how to let Ava go without losing her . . . how to prepare her for the world without falling apart while I do it. I think I just need to watch my own mother, whenever I’m home for lunch, and she’ll teach me.