Adjustments

My daughters are now in college.  How I envy them!  I remember those days so clearly.  Young, able bodied, exciting and safe all at the same time.  Looking back I realize that college was more than another text book to read but an environment to practice being an adult with your parents nearby.  The independence of those years was intoxicating.

I also miss them.  It is cliché to say it seems like yesterday but there is truth to clichés.  While I don't remember my breakfast this morning, I do remember feeding them their breakfast fifteen years ago.  I remember all those tedious details of hair combing, clothes selection, meals, homework, and all the drama involved with young girls.  Sigh.

I am now a woman in a house of men.  Not that I talk about it with my husband because he was outnumbered for so many years.  And I am certainly not the feminine sort.  Yet, I miss helping with their outfits, hair and the general chatter that follows them.  I feel very alone sometimes.

Or perhaps it is loneliness that stems from their leaving whether they are girls or boys.  The house is quieter.  I make far less food and wash fewer clothes. 

No, I do miss them.  I feel that we became more than mother and daughter in the last few years.  I hope we became friends.