So,
despite having got out of hospital exactly a week ago after gallbladder surgery, I still made the 5 hour
journey to Palmerston North, to take my last child of 4 to university there. I
had to. That’s what mummies do!
She
was ready to go, there’s no doubt about that. She made free with my car and my
house and definitely started to win the unwinnable arguments. It was time.
The
journey was painful and long. I couldn’t lay my seat down because my husband’s
enormous car wasn’t quite big enough to fit in a year’s worth of crap and my
daughter’s worldly belongings jammed my seat in an upright position. It also spilled
over into her sister’s car, some kilometres behind us on the Desert Road as the
two of them bopped and swayed to something jaunty on the stereo, which thank goodness I was spared. I could see their heads bobbing in the side mirrors.
A
running race in Taupo delayed us by enough that we couldn’t quite make it to
Taihape before my bladder exploded so Waiouru it was. I spent some time in the
toilet at the garage mending one of my sutured wounds with a Band Aid, as you
do. Mummy power and all that. But all too soon it was Palmerston North and the Massey University Campus.
Daughter number 2, as she’s loving called, met us there with her boyfriend as
she’s in her 3rd year at Massey and went through this a few years ago. We
unloaded my husband’s car and Daughter number 1’s car, while Daughter number 3
ran around like a headless chicken, eyeing the other newbie students like a
rabbit in the headlights. “I’ll never make any friends,” she repeated on a loop, as the rest of us fended off the terrified teens who lurched for human contact,
abandoned by their parents only hours before.
"Say 'hi' to everyone," they were probably told, "and you'll make friends." Walls, doors, other people's parents, siblings, their car, their luggage. All with that crazed look in their eyes. They'll all be fine once they stop trying so hard.
"Say 'hi' to everyone," they were probably told, "and you'll make friends." Walls, doors, other people's parents, siblings, their car, their luggage. All with that crazed look in their eyes. They'll all be fine once they stop trying so hard.
We got home a couple of hours ago. I adore my husband and we will be celebrating our
24th wedding anniversary tomorrow. So why then does my house feel so empty and soulless?
Her room is stripped bare as she’s taken everything with her. I really thought
I’d be fine. My son was barely 17 when he left for the army and I cried for a
full day and scrubbed his room until it shone, like a psychotic disinfectant
queen. Since then I’ve had my older 3 coming and going like Zebedee on
steroids, Canada, England, home, flatting, going, going, gone...
When I look back, producing 4 bouncing babies in 4 years flat was a miracle feat, even if I did chuck twins in there just to show off. There were times when I thought I wouldn't make it out the other end alive. There's a pitiful video of me sat drowned in babies on my eldest daughter's 4th birthday and I say very sorrowfully, "I think you lot will have me dead by the time I'm 30!" And there were times when I believed it and probably welcomed the idea of a permanent nap amidst all the crazy.
But
my youngest feels so final. She drove me to work so I could check emails on
my phone and we swapped at her school. I’ve stupidly left the alarm on my phone
to remind me to collect her from the bus in Ngaruawahia at 3.20pm on weekdays. Now I can’t
delete it because I’ll still look at the clock and probably cry anyway. I
thought it was funny all through the summer holidays when it pinged and we both
laughed. Not so jolly now, is it?
She
vacuumed for me on Friday. Yeah, I paid her but hey, she knew I wasn’t up to
it. There are stripes on the rug in the family room where she went forward and
back with the vacuum. I don’t want to be the one to walk across them and spoil
her pattern. She spent 3 weeks away leading on a horse camp over the summer. “I
can do this. It’ll be fun to eat cornflakes naked in the dining room just
because I can,” I valiantly told my husband. I know I won’t. I’ll be looking
for my daughter to stroll in, set fire to her gluten free bread in the toaster
and make free with my husband’s coveted jar of Nutella that he keeps hidden
behind the boring tins of beans and sweetcorn, thinking that’s the last place
she’d look. He's spent the last 9 years in NZ thinking it evaporates in the heat. Now he's gonna know.
The
paddock looks empty of some horse waiting to be broken in by her, or taught
some manners. Her tack shed is even swept clean with my broom that she left out
in the rain. The sky looks grey tonight, like the Waikato is grieving.
Last
one out is a cissy. But I find after all, the cissy is me.
#parenting #parents #familytime
No comments:
Post a Comment