When Your Children Return To College

And Now I Understand My Parents Better Now

Graduation Day, Frostburg State College (me w/my parents, Mrs. Dorothy Pearl Gilmore and Wilmer I Gilmore)

My children are returning to college. The holiday, the break, is over for them. It is bittersweet.

Yes, so glad to have seen them and spent time with them. But, it gets good to you again. You get used to them being around. Then, you realize you have produced a human being, who has their own life. They have to go.

Poof.

When I was in college, I would come home, and within hours I would be out with old friends, hanging out in old haunts, having a real good time. Most nights, I would come home later and later, and then sleep until the afternoon.

My children did not hang out but they did stay up late, and they did sleep later and later. It was hilarious. I saw them but mostly they did their thing. They have lived now.

On some level, you feel cheated. They want to go places and do things. You just want them to stay home and be who they are — your child.

I can remember on more than a few occasions on college visits, I barely saw my parents. I would be around on Christmas or Thanksgiving but the rest of the time, I would be trying to squeeze as much life and a good time out of the city of Washington D.C. as I could with my friends.