The last little chick is set to leave home

This summer is inexorably moving into mid August when my last child leaves home for college.  We’ve been so busy working through the details of helping her with enrollment, securing an apartment and settling on a moving date that it really hasn’t started to hit me that she’s really gonna be gone in just two weeks, until now. 
 
I knew this was going to be a summer of transition involving changes in my personal life and my daughters moving out and away.  I’ve mentioned my older daughter a few times on the show, how she took a position with Teach for America and left for Memphis, Tennessee the first of June.  We’ve been walking alongside her long distance as she goes through many new experiences, from living in someplace other than California, to undergoing intensive training to teach 6th grade social studies in a Kipp Charter School.
 
And now my youngest is leaving too.  I’ve always been a little more protective of her – and although we’ve given her the opportunity to travel all over the globe (she has been to every continent before age 18) it was with an organization that specialized in keeping teens safe, while giving them the chance of a lifetime to see the world.  For some reason, I’m more nervous about her living on her own in a small central California college town than I was in sending her to Thailand.
 
In her remaining days before she leaves I’m trying to give her advice to take with her as she lives on her own for the very first time, whether it’s shopping for food, managing her finances, or making smart choices in friends and how she spends her time.  I tell myself I do these things to help her, but if I’m completely honest I must admit it helps me feel like I’m doing something useful, as if mom’s words of wisdom will stay with her in the days ahead. 
 
I know, this is just the empty nest syndrome kicking in … pretty soon the only ones left at the house will be me, my husband and the cat.  Now if we can somehow ship the cat off, maybe we can finally go on that couple’s vacation we’ve been dreaming about for the last 25 years…

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