The Practice Goodbyes

Last Updated on August 1, 2023 by Jill Schwitzgebel

As the youngest in our family began his senior year of high school today, on the heels of our oldest graduating from college, I’ve had a few revelations.  I waved goodbye this morning to Kid #3 while he got into the car to drive himself off to his last first day of school, and it hit me that this was just practice.  In fact, all of the other goodbyes I’ve said to him so far have been just practice goodbyes.

My husband and I got a brief taste of the empty nest this summer, while all three kids were gone at the same time for several weeks.  We had more weeks without kids than we have had in almost 23 years. I have to be honest; we thoroughly enjoyed it!  Somehow, it made me believe that we were more than ready for that to become a permanent state next year.  I thought it was possible that I wouldn’t shed a tear at college drop-off next Fall.

After today’s goodbye though, I’m feeling a lot less sure about that.  Today, the tears snuck up on me and hit hard enough that I realized there was nothing to do but let them flow for a bit.  Sometimes, that just needs to happen after a goodbye, even when you can’t quite understand why.

There are baby steps as you practice goodbye.  There is that first goodbye when they start preschool, or maybe for some, it’s daycare.  I remember how sad I felt in the parking lot after dropping him off that day and missing him a little as I shopped for groceries. That was strange since I had dreamed of being able to shop kid-free!  And I quickly learned to appreciate that shopping freedom.  But, it didn’t mean that a part of me wouldn’t miss our days together.

Two years later, I practiced goodbye again as I put him on the school bus for kindergarten for the first time.  He was so excited!  But for a few weeks, I sort of felt like I’d lost an important body part or something, after almost ten years of having little people at home with me.  Life was a little crazier now and I suddenly appreciated that there had been a certain amount of freedom in not having to serve a school schedule.  I went back to work though and life resumed a good, new normal.

And I kept getting chances to practice goodbye as we dropped kids at sleepovers, then sleep-away camps, then waving from the driveway after they first got their drivers licenses.  Those big milestone goodbyes like kindergarten are always the toughest practices though.  And that’s what today was as he drove off for his senior year – just another tough practice for the next goodbye.

The next big goodbye hopefully will be said to him at a college dorm.  I’ve written previously about how you quickly discover that the college drop-off is not the last goodbye, any more than putting them on the bus for kindergarten was.  (It sure felt that way when we dropped the older two off, though!)

Knowing that doesn’t make us any less nostalgic for those days spent with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers though.  In fact, that college goodbye makes us romanticize those earlier years, causing us to say annoying things to moms of littles, like, “Enjoy these days.  They go by so fast!”   And inevitably, the tears will fall again.  You’ll miss the young adult you were really starting to enjoy getting to know. But, just like all those years ago,  your family life becomes a good, new, quieter normal.  You still get to text, talk, Facetime and see them for long breaks between semesters.  Even when they refer to their dorm or apartment as “home,” you know that ultimately, their home is with you.

I foolishly imagined that once we had survived that college goodbye, we had passed the goodbye test.  This is surely what all those other practice goodbyes had been leading to, right?  Nope.  What nobody told me during the college graduation celebrations is that there is still another goodbye yet to come.  And apparently, dropping them at college is just practice for this next one.  So, while I said the senior year sendoff goodbye this morning to Kid 3, I’m also preparing for a new kind of goodbye to Kids 1 and 2.  Just like all the other goodbyes have felt at the time, this one feels different and more momentous. This time, they are officially adults, leaving home to start their lives on their own.  This time when we say goodbye, their permanent home address will no longer be the same as mine.

I’m getting through this thanks to what I’ve learned from all the practice goodbyes. I know that life will surely return to a good, new normal.  The first visit is already planned, and I know we can still talk, text and Facetime.  I have no doubt that once again after this goodbye though, the tears will hit me.  And I’m starting to finally understand that they are for the memories of all the past goodbyes.

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