Sometime tonight, we will begin loading up the vehicles with my daughter’s stuff in preparation for her move tomorrow to Knoxville and the University of Tennessee.
We’ve been readying ourselves for this move for months now. Emotionally, financially, physically, you name it. It has been a very taxing process. Everyone in the family was pulled in several directions over the last year or so. There are so many major decisions to be made, and you seesaw between thinking this is the most important decision of her life and telling yourself that she can always go a different route if this doesn’t work out. Kids do it all the time, so what’s the big deal, right?
On the one hand, you want your child to stay close so you can visit, help if needed, protect, hug her neck and do all of the things you’ve done every day for the last 18 years.
On the other hand, the whole idea is for your child to become whatever it is she should become, and we really want her to challenge herself and grow.
Another train of thought is that her going away would mean my wife and I will have the whole house to ourselves and we can do whatever we want. It’s a nice thought, and it might work for some, but what I want to do is watch my kids play ball. Always have, but that’s being selfish.