Separation Anxiety

I am the parent of an almost-18 year old. My daughter has taken to alerting me to the countdown til the day she becomes an adult (in her eyes anyway) ever since she turned 17. The growing list of things she plans to do on that auspicious day include the possibility of coming home sporting a nose piercing and a small, discreet tattoo. I am not as concerned about the nose piercing and tattoo as some moms may be since I consider both of these expressions part of the process inherent in the developmental task of separating one's identity from one's family of origin and becoming an independent person. Besides that, she, not I, will be the one to live with her body art.

The sweet baby I held, read "Stellaluna" to, and rocked to sleep for years now lets me squeeze her on occasion, puts herself to sleep while reading her Statistics textbook and darts out the door, dark hair flying, to meet her friends at the bookstore faster than a caffeinated Superman. No longer does she play dress up in my shoes and clothes, clomping around the house with her teensy painted toenails swimming in my heels, now she rummages around in my closet "for reals" to borrow a new pair of shoes. Her dad and I survived last year's "learning to drive" cardio-workouts and I once again channeled my mother in the form of stomping upon the invisible brake on the floor of the passenger side while simultaneously gripping the window with the tips of my right hand with the tenacity of a starfish clinging to a rock at low tide. When it was time to take her out to practice driving around town, while dutifully following her out the door, her dad and I would whisper "shotgun" to the other meaning the loser was to sit in the front. One year later, I can relax more while in the real shotgun position as I recognize her improved driving skills.

The hardest thing for me about her turning 18 is that with the new chronological age comes her preference to engage in independent activities; long gone are the days of scheduled playdates set up between me and other careful moms. Last night I was called "psycho-mom" for the umpteenth time when she voiced her desire to join friends today on a beach outing a few hours away. The psycho-mom term was bandied about when I voiced my desire to speak with a parent before she climbed into a carful o'teens to drive several hundred miles away. I have always been one who worked hard to keep my worries (which I not so affectionately called "the dark things that lurk out there to harm my child once she is beyond my reach") from spilling onto her when she was little, but I have to confess that a few have sprung loose and begun to drip with the slow steadiness of an IV since she and her friends gained access to wheels and displayed an eagerness to explore the world beyond the perceived safety of our postal code.

Now that she is in her last year of high school that other countdown has begun, ticking ever closer to the day she packs her things, pats the dogs, kisses her dad and I goodbye, and sets off for college and the great world beyond. I always encouraged her to leave the state when she goes to college since I think of it as the time in one's life to experience a completely different culture and climate, meet new people while exploring areas of academic interest all the while, learning to make decisions on one's own. Now, as we plan for college visits a thousand miles away and begin the application process to distant places whose glossy scenes of campus life have competed for space on the kitchen butcher block for the past several months, I must admit I am struggling to keep myself from babbling and blathering about the attributes of the handful of colleges right here in our same area code.

Eighteen years have flown with such velocity that surely she and I have been encapsulated in some form of time warp that only I could feel and as I write this entry I can't stop my ambivalent tears from springing forth. I am so proud of my bright, beautiful, and talented daughter but I will miss her so when on that fateful day she, with gentleness and persistence, closes the door of her dorm room on her dad and me. Although we endured and weathered our share of arguments, painful barbs and scornful looks, for the most part, I am happy, no, bursting with joy to say that my daughter and I truly appreciate each other's company. We have danced with each other at concerts, hopping up and down to the tunes of G. Love and Ben Harper among others. We have snuggled under a blanket on the couch while watching sappy Lifetime movies and clutched each other's hands til our knuckles were white while having the beejesus scared out of us watching rented horror flicks. We have sweated through long runs, passing the time talking about boys and life and the future. We've laughed at ourselves and each other in the mirror while Zumba-ing to world beats. She taught me how to download music into my Ipod and send text messages without too much consternation and I taught her to make fresh pesto and banana bread. We have giggled til tears rolled down our faces over "you had to be there" incidents and comforted the other through pain, disappointments and loss. Now the next step, for me at least, is to encourage and support her in this next developmental task: separation and individuation. It's ironic that when my daughter was young, she went through a stage lasting several years in which she cried at the drop off curb at school in the morning and worried that her dad or I would accidentally leave her behind in a store while shopping. I recall driving across town in the wee hours of the morning after a tearful, lonesome call from a frightened 9 year old following an aborted attempt to spend the night at a friend's house. "Will she ever be able to spend the night away from home?" I wondered while sleepily nosing the minivan through the dark streets on my mission of rescue. I purchased books to read about helping one's child cope with separation anxiety. I read Berenstain Bears and other stories to her about being brave and helped her to put words to her fears about being away from mommy and daddy. Now my formerly anxious daughter feels no hesitation when climbing onto a stool at open mic night, strumming her guitar and singing her own songs to a crowd of strangers. She spends the night away from home with girlfriends on a regular basis and she has flown to both coasts on her own on numerous occasions.

If the excitement in her eyes and her hearty appetite to experience new things is any indication, then I would say that her once-evident separation anxiety is in full remission. Now it looks as though it's my turn to experience the butterflies and willies in my belly and lump in my throat for an unknown period of time as I prepare for the coming months. I guess it's time for me to once again hop in the car and head to my favorite bookstore, only this time to see what is on the shelves for for mommies who are experiencing pangs of separation anxiety from their grown up babies while also trying to savor each and every morning she staggers out of her room, yawning and rubbing sleep from her eyes, searching me out to share with me what she dreamt the night before.