![]() I helped lug all her bedding (via the tubes) back to her place. I followed her around all week while she mastered the tubes – both over and underground. Selling all her life’s stuff, moving across an ocean and (oy, don’t get me started) coordinating shipment of a beloved dog was intense – as well as fraught with false starts and wire transfers and problems we didn’t anticipate. While she researched and placed calls and signed reams of documents I read and did crossword puzzles and sat in the café chair facing the room like a mob boss, happy to people watch while she did her thing. I forced myself to stay silently in the background, left my phone turned off for the week and became, simply, the weighted blanket in the room. I allowed her to adult her way through every obstacle and steered clear of Mom Mode, resisting the urge to whip out a credit card for every expense or offer unsolicited advice. She closed them one by one, taking some lumps for a couple of impulsive decisions, but in the end, everything worked out. There were at least a dozen other unresolved open loose ends when we arrived. We left as soon as her Visa came – without her replacement bank card having arrived yet, without a guaranteed – or signed – lease and without any idea where we’d be sleeping on Night 2. Despite my daily dread or dogged reservations or downright disagreements with her many decisions, I went with the flow – her flow ( Mom, it’s FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE) – and forced myself to chill out. ![]() I declared this trip my own Week of Yes and went along with everything – and anything – that came up. ![]() Well, if she could do that, I marveled, sensing my own whine, and put on my Big Girl panties. I took a deep breath and stole a mantra from my bestie who’d declared, at the start of her very first year as a new divorcee, a Year of Yes: 365 days of saying yes to every invitation, social suggestion or life opportunity that arose. At the risk of having my plus-one status revoked, I zipped it and ignored my growing apprehensions. As her exit loomed, I became increasingly anxious at all the open loose ends of her international move but she was having none of it. Fun fact: it’s a wee bit different than how a mom does. It was indeed awesome but not without headaches – or facial tics.įor six weeks I bore witness to how a millennial plans things. It was as if we both knew our time was fleeting and the petty spats of her youth remained mocking memories. She cooked dinners and hung around with our friends and managed all the details of her departure with a skip in her step. She’d accepted a London position within her company and immediately began purging her possessions, returning home to finalize her transition and prepare.įor the first time in nearly a decade she shared our home yet none of our past skirmishes – the hair in the shower, the food under the bed, the sleeping until midday – surfaced. How far was far enough?īut this wasn’t about me. She was already living 2,000 miles from home. You made this crazy, impulsive decision, my crushed heart shouted to my brain, I am not helping you with this. In fact, when she asked me to accompany her my knee-jerk reaction was an emphatic NOPE. Better than calm, I felt genuinely excited for her new adventure. ![]() It seemed I’d blinked and suddenly all the planning and problems and logistical hiccups had passed and now it was time for me to go. In the cab on my way to the airport in pre-dawn darkness with her apartment – excuse me, flat - fading from view, I went over the past week in my head. I traveled to another country with my daughter and I left her there.
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