She’s leaving today

[slippingthroughmyfingers1]

My daughter is leaving today. She graduated from university this summer and has found a great graduate position and is moving 2 hours away for it. She has worked so hard, done everything she needed to and she is so so excited about her future.

I’m so incredibly proud of her and the woman she has become and I know that this is the natural order of things, we raise them so they can go and live their own lives but I’m also just so sad this morning knowing that she will never “live” here again. She will come for visits and we will visit her but it won’t be the same. I thought her leaving for uni was hard but this is just more final than that was.

I wouldn’t change a thing, she needs to go and live her life and I’m so excited for her to do that but also just incredibly sad this morning.

We have still got her younger brother and sister at home so the house won’t be empty by any means but it still really hard and I don’t know where all that time went!

So nice to hear of a family where there is success and pride, rather than strife and failure. Well done that family.
I still live in the family house even though both mine are adults and living there own lives miles away, I wish I saw them more but they are making their own lives based on their careers..
Many of their belongings are still here. Kit for hobbies and bicycles. Time to sort and perhaps move if and when they marry.

Where I am will always be their home.

Totally get it, OP. You spend all these years pouring all your love and energy into raising a confident young adult who can strike out themselves, embrace life and leave home and then the buggers reward you by doing exactly that. The selfish bastards.

I wasn't prepared for how hard it would hit me and how conflicted I'd feel. So, so proud and genuinely happy for them, wanting all the opportunities in the world for your precious baby* - and at the same time the heartbreak of letting them go. You wouldn't dream of trying to stop them, but that doesn't change how much you miss them.

Big hugs to you, and lots of luck to your DD.

*For anyone who says they're not your babies, they're fully grown adults blah blah blah - they're BOTH. That's the point.

It goes so fast but you have clearly done a brilliant job raising her, congratulations ❤️

Weird! You must be the only person who deliberately misunderstood that posters comment as it’s was perfectly clear to the rest of us. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well done to your DD for being successful with her achievements.
Your sadness is understandable. It's yet another one of lifes transition periods. It will take some time and its natural to feel like this but it will go away.
Having said that, I don't think it actually goes away, we just get used to it.
Also we get busy with other areas of our life and we feel it less.
Best wishes.

Wèll done to your dd. Of course you feel sad. We do miss people we love. I hate all ends to stages myself. My youngest child has just left juniors snd I'm hating that feeling of growing up and bit by bit loosing them.

When my eldest left for uied for weeks. Then he dropped out. Now I now there's much worse than leaving to flourish. There's coming home because you didn't fly. So it's normal and valid to be sad. But honestly the alternative is worse. Ideally they would all only move five miles away.

What a hard day. Pride and grief combined.

Well done on raising a woman who's confident and ready to leave the nest you built.

Sending you love.

PS: my DD played your user name loudly when putting her final bits in the car for uni. It broke me and she knew it would!

Are you ok?! That’s not how it came across at all 🤣 the rude poster was saying what’s the point -and this poster was saying “it’s a chat site” aka that’s the point…

This has been explained to the poster several times but she's just carried on having a go at me!

When my son left for uni over 2 hours away I cried so much people must have thought someone had died. He never returned home & is now married. I promise you get used to it.

I call it being a victim of my own success! TBH I knew when dd went to uni she’d never live with me full time again and I was right, she graduated 2 years ago and got a job in her uni city. I see her every few weeks, she’s just been here for a visit.
I am so proud of her making her own way in the world. It does get easier, I don’t cry when she’s left now. I see friends with similar age children who are failing to launch and I know the sadness is worth it! My youngest is still at home so it’s not a fully empty nest yet.

h it's tough. The uni years are a dry run for the final move out.
It's bittersweet because you know how much you'll miss her yet you're thrilled at her success and proud.

My youngest did this during covid and ended up back home twice because of accommodation/ job changes which was a bit of a setback for him but an unexpected bonus for me.

@ALittleBitofWensleydale you must be very sad, obviously you want him to follow his dreams but that's tough on you. My eldest may well do the same.

I'm already dreading that feeling.

Well done to her, what an exciting time. She's doing what you dream they'll do but it still makes your heart ache. I hope it all goes well for her.

Congratulations to both you and your daughter - you for raising an amazing girl, and her for working hard to achieve her dreams.

Absolutely understand your mixed feelings, I've been there myself - it's hard and very emotional at these times. Having those celebratory things to look forward to certainly helps, and I always used to have another 'date in the diary' to get through the weeks.

When I was speaking about 'empty nest' to my step-mum-in-law she looked blankly at me and said she didn't understand why I felt like that!!!! She was a rather limited woman, so maybe I shouldn't have confided in her!!!!

My daughter was an only child, whether that makes it harder it's not for me to judge - but any child leaving home is so bitter sweet.

I hope you start feeling better soon - give it time - I'm sure you will adjust eventually. Ignore the naysayers and be so proud of yourself and your lovely daughter.

I completely understand and am in a very similar position. It’s complicated and weird for me. I’m really sad that she doesn’t properly live here anymore, and that all of the small mundane things aren’t in our lives anymore. Like what does she want for dinner and complaining that she’s ran out of something and didn’t tell me so I could replace it… found myself thinking back over our lives and all of the memories of totally ordinary things like getting her ready for school, walking back from nursery, it just feels like we’ve somehow skipped a chunk of time and now we’re here. It’s obviously what we hope for in a way, that they’ll be ready to progress and gain independence, it’s just like some kind of grieving I think when it actually happens because they’re more ready than we are.

@IsItOverYetPlease My mother was very controlling, apron strings of steel, so I am very conscious of not doing the same because I hated it. I do have a glimmer of sympathy for her now though! Its just all gone so fast!

That bloody ABBA song caught me by surpeise the other day. There were stealthy tears!

Yes another milestone when they get jobs and move out, exciting but still the end of an era too. Shame she couldn't have found something a bit closer to home to make visiting etc easier.

Congratulations on the first successful launch, the next two will be easier. I was the same when my only child moved to London for his graduate job and again a couple of years later when he moved to Europe. Recently I was struck by how much more confident he is, also now a good cook and miraculously tidy, considering (teen years). And I can drop at the airport and wave him off without welling up. Pride mixed with sadness is poignant. “Ships are safest in port but that’s not what they were built for”

What she said. Well done to your DD on her job and hugs for you, I can understand the mixed emotions. Been there, done that.

I thought she was supporting the OP.

I sympathise OP.

Much is made of kids going off to university, but actually I found that easier than I expected. When they’re at uni they’re home for the holidays, which are very long, and all their uni addresses are temporary. So home is still home.

DS1 has just graduated, and is looking for jobs all over the country. It’s a strange time when you realise that they’re going to have a new home, not just a student house on a one year contract, but an actual new home. It definitely requires a big mental shift for parents.

Well done op! All those feeds and sleepless nights and dealing with the teenage angst and you’ve produced a well rounded, confident member of society! Have a glass of something lovely and celebrate xx

By the way, she may come back - I did (with husband in tow) for 6 months while our house sale went through 😀

Change is often difficult. I’ve currently got one out of 3 adult DC at home, but we have had various combinations over the last 5 years, and couple of months with none of them here.
We try to do some things together, eg watch a show or series online , or do a quiz. The DC play online games together too, and this works for them, despite one being in another country.
We try to have Christmas together and also some time in the summer, but I know in the back of my mind that not even that is going to be a forever thing.
I try not to dwell on it too much, it is a sadness, but what’s the alternative? They all stay at home and their lives don’t progress?

I understand where your coming from. It's bittersweet. Congratulations to your daughter!