07. home and away

My daughter is headed off to college Tuesday.

(And here is where I wrote a bunch of stuff about her, and then deleted it, because it always feels icky to talk *too* much about her because it’s her own story to tell.)

Of course, my only kid leaving for college is a huge deal. But it’s also not. The college that ended up being her “ultimate dream college” is, ironically, ten minutes away from our house.

For years she was planning on going to a UC school in our city, but when she started to think about her interests, career plans, what she wanted in colleges, she started looking at small liberal arts schools all around California, and visiting their campuses, and one we didn’t even know existed, really, ended up being her dream school.

And it’s about a ten minute drive, a little bit longer of a drive than her high school was.

When my daughter was a little kid, and we were in Florida, she went on a trip to California and something about it enchanted her- she fell in love with California and came home telling everyone that this is where she wanted to live.

I had always quietly dreamed of living in California, so we created an exit strategy for us to get the fuck out of Florida. The plan was that when my daughter started college, we would move to California. My daughter would figure out where she wanted to go to school first and then we’d settle, residentially, in the same area.

It was super important to me that she absolutely, 100% choose her own school. My parents let me apply anywhere I wanted, but then they announced they were only going to pay for one school- Emory University, in Atlanta, because it was on the driving route from New York to Florida, where they vacationed a few times a year while my dad was beginning the process of retirement.

My parents don’t fly so they figured they could swing by and drop in a few times a year while they made the drive from NY to Florida and back again. The reason they don’t fly is because they like to be in control of every aspect of their trip- departure time, how the navigating is done, how they stop and when, the time they took, etc.

[Side story which may give insight to my estrangement with my parents:]
A few weeks into my freshman year at Emory, I went to the ER late on a Friday night with a weird pain in my foot and ankle- like a grinding sensation that just felt really really wrong- and all hell broke loose. It turned out I picked up some rare bacteria in the college showers (so gross) and it had made its way into the bone of my foot. Possible amputation, and the CDC was called in to consult.

I called my parents from the hospital and they informed me they would get there when they could- they had to get organized, pack up, clean the house, close up, and make the drive. They would not fly. Until then, I had to deal with it the best I could.

I had to leave the hospital at 2am after the diagnosis, go pack up my college room, try and find an administrator on campus that could help me start the process of withdrawing for the semester, and then re-check myself into the hospital the next day. Then once back in the hospital, I had to try and stay calm and make sensible choices – again, I was 18- while the infectious disease people from the CDC were swarming around me, murmuring about the situation and warning me that the clock was ticking- if I let the infection progress and it went into my body, I could die. So was I going to let them start removing bones or take that risk?! All the while I was waiting for my parents to methodically clean the house, neatly pack their fucking car, and make the drive down to Atlanta so I could figure out what the hell was going to happen… Yeah.

You know, a woman from the CDC kept coming in and asking me, angrily, “where are your parents?!” and at the time it really offended me- I assumed she was mad at me for being irresponsible enough to get this rare infection. I defended my parents absence and tried to meet her clipped attitude with my own.

In hindsight, I realize that she likely wasn’t asking because she thought I was immature- my doctors were around, and they were telling all the CDC people that for an 18 year old, I had a remarkable knowledge of my Spina Bifida and my health care and had been handling it myself since I got to Atlanta.

The CDC doctor was likely asking about my parents because she couldn’t understand why the hell no one was there with me- an eighteen year old kid, not allowed to be scared or medicated or treated because I had to stay on top of every aspect of what was happening- I had to be alert and diligent. They were talking amputation and I had to handle that information (I wound up just losing half of my big toe, which under the circumstances, seems like a miracle…)

As a parent of an eighteen year old, I finally understand how fucking messed up that situation was. I know *why* it happened- my mom’s NPD/OCD controlled every aspect of our lives, especially hers. I mean, NPD and OCD combined is basically like a parasite that takes over a person. She couldn’t help that. My dad was her enabler, and still is. But still.. there were two adults in that situation, and one of them could have said “maybe this time it’s not about us having control of every aspect of this situation- maybe this time we should just get on a plane and get there…”

Also, I had been brought up with my parents telling me I was lucky that I had parents that would come at all in these sorts of events, that they were rare good parents for taking care of me and getting me health care the way they did. So for years I internalized the cycle of not understanding their ways of parenting, feeling abandoned and shut out even when I was a tiny kid, and then feeling horrible and guilty over being upset with them because they were looking after me in the first place. Like I was some sickly stray that wandered on to their doorstep or something.

As I remember this, it clarifies im my heart and head once again why it’s okay that I am estranged from my parents. And why it was crucial to get away and find *my* home, this place here in California.

It’s been four years since we left Florida, and I still feel a shitload of guilt and sorrow over feeling like I abandoned my parents -two helpless, elderly people- but the truth is that I’ve always sort of been on my own. The only thing living a few blocks from them in Florida did was sort of ease their idea of what “family” should be- it’s not like I had any genuine relationship or engagement with them. They lost interest in my daughter when she stopped being young enough for them to dress up and parade around like a doll.

And my parents and I were never really functional as a family, despite the fact that was the myth that they liked to seem to trot out whenever I talked about leaving Florida. I think my dad liked being a dad, even though he wasn’t around much because he worked 60 hour weeks, but my mom really did not enjoy being a mother, so the truth is it would have been better for all of us if I had pulled away decades ago.

As I write this I realize moving to California- leaving them- is something that actually enabled me to be a better parent, and ultimately give my daughter a less stressful experience transitioning into her college life. We’re here, established, she’s going to college in the same city she spent the last four years in and is familiar and happy in. Home is here if she needs it, and home is here if she *doesn’t*. I hope that makes sense.

Also, if we had waited, we couldn’t have afforded to move here! Anywhere in Southern California, likely. The property values here have almost tripled in the last four years (!!) and the property values of where we were in Florida have stagnated and gone *down*. That is shocking to realize. The timing on this… wow. One of those things in life that weirdly work out. They rarely happen, but when they do it feels like clockwork in a way- weird universal magic.

ANYWAY, as I was saying, the big thing for me was that my daughter absolutely have agency over her future, and college choice, and it turns out the small, artsy, progressive liberal arts college she fell in love with happened to literally be ten minutes away from our house here in California.

So my daughter is busy lightly packing with the knowledge that she can literally just drop home at any time to pick up anything, do her laundry, eat, crash here, etc. She plans on being fully on campus, but I think in the back of her mind it’s like she’ll have two places she can bounce between. Her room will stay her room for as long as she wants it to. And she’s planning on being a librarian, so she may need to return home for a few years while she does grad school and gets established financially, and she might even return home with a partner, and that’s something that’s perfectly fine, also.

I have so many hopes for her, but most of all, I want her to feel happy, and engrossed and part of something and safe and like she’s growing and embraced for exactly who she is. I just want her to feel good being herself, knowing that she’s on the right path and that she can trust herself to make good choices and that she feels supported and encouraged by all the people around her, while also being motivated and encouraged to push herself further and go for her dreams in a huge way.

I know that’s a lot, but everyone deserves that- everyone deserves to feel just right about who they are and what they are doing.