Author’s Note: The post that follows was originally published on July 31, 2016. As we prepare for our youngest, Henry, to head off to college in a little less than a month, this piece feels particularly relevant again to my family’s circumstances. As such, I wanted to share it with others among you who may be navigating your way through the wild emotional ride that is the summer between finishing high school and starting college. -JST
The Summer Between
The summer between high school and college is a unique moment in time. It is punctuated at either end by massive life moments and a flood of competing emotions which cover the full spectrum, from pride and joy to nostalgia and loss. And confusion. And for parents, it is at once wonderful and awful.
High school graduation is simultaneously a celebration of achievement and the passing of a mile marker on life’s journey that requires special acknowledgement. It’s much more than successfully completing a prescribed set of courses and collecting a diploma on a sun splashed football field while an under-staffed school band croaks out a tinny version of Pomp and Circumstance. It is unmistakably the official end of childhood. And for parents, it is at once wonderful and awful.
Starting college is accepting an invitation to fulfill the promise of potential. Steering up the on-ramp to independence and pressing harder on the accelerator than ever before. It’s hauling a few pieces of who you were and a set of extra-long sheets in overstuffed boxes up three flights of dormitory stairs on a steamy August morning and understanding for the first time that going home will never be quite the same again. It is somewhat subtly the beginning of adulthood. And for parents, it is at once wonderful and awful.
I don’t recall giving the summer between much thought before our oldest son, John, graduated from high school. We’d talked about him going to college and discussed the search process at great length and in exacting detail beginning when he was 12 years-old and continuing right until the acceptance email from his top choice school came in February of his senior year. (There is a lot of car time to discuss college while driving to and from soccer games when you live in central Maine.) I suppose that on some level the fact that I had been advising parents about negotiating their children’s transitions to college for the preceding 20 years led me to believe I knew what to expect.
I was wrong.
The summer between was for me a constant swirl of emotions that began the day after John’s high school graduation and persisted right up until we drove onto campus that Labor Day to move him in. There was enormous pride in what he had accomplished. A deep and consuming sense of joy and happiness that came from both witnessing and sharing in the celebration with our terrific child and the friends and families that were so much a part of our journey to that moment. There was also a bittersweet melancholy for those who were not there to share it with us – friends from the town where we’d lived for John’s first 11 years and the three grandparents who were gone too soon.
And then there was the ache.
The ache was not isolated or easily defined. It was a slow, steady realization that this person who, along with his brother, had been at or near the center of every important moment, event, occasion – everything that mattered – for the past 18 plus years…the kid in the car-seat who sang along with Raffi and interrogated you incessantly…the one who always said, “I love you too,” and never once flinched when you kissed him goodnight…this constant, fortifying, unshakeable presence in my life – my kid – was leaving. It felt like some essential part of my being was going to be cut out of me.
I did my best to ignore the ache. In many ways June, July, and August of the summer between were not much different from any other year. The days and the shape of our lives were largely unchanged. We went to work and had dinner and watched the Red Sox and Netflix. But as familiar and normal and routine as things appeared on the surface, the reality that all of it was about to change was a constant, looming presence.
The confusing part was that up until graduation, John’s going to college had been only a good and happy thought. And, of course, despite the ache, it still was.
I was indescribably excited for him. He was about to embark on the grand adventure that I know college to be. And I knew – as both a parent and a dean of students – he was more than ready. That he would drink it in and that he would thrive.
For me, college had been a true rebirth. My arrival at Middlebury in the fall of 1982 was in many ways my arrival at myself. At who I was supposed to be and would become. I felt whole –personally, academically, geographically, socially, and existentially complete in ways I never had before. I belonged on that campus and in those classrooms and with those people.
It was amazing and it was liberating and I wanted it to be everything for John that it had been for me.
So yeah, there was the ache. But there was also the anticipation of all the amazing things that were right around the corner for him.
Also, there was my work, which during the summer consisted largely of preparing to welcome and orient roughly 500 new students into a college experience I knew would be transformational and life changing. A college experience that would expand their scope of knowledge and broaden their world view and expose them to people and ideas they didn’t even know existed before. An experience that would challenge them and change them and enrich their lives in countless ways.
And there were all the things I had been telling parents for years. That it’s time. That their children – their students – are ready. That they – parents and students – will be okay.
So I told myself it would be okay. And it was. That the ache would go away. And it did.
The summer between is a bit of a rollercoaster; a wild ride full of ups and downs and twists and turns. Your heart is in your throat and your stomach churns and you have to remind yourself to breathe every now and then. It’s terrifying and unsettling and exhilarating and life affirming all at the same time. Then it ends.
And so does the summer between. You get through it. You exhale. The ache goes away and life becomes normal again. Decidedly different – a new normal – but normal nonetheless. You realize that what is essential and enduring in the connection to your college student child is still there. And you’re okay.
Sure, you miss them like crazy. But in a good way.
And it is wonderful.
