"In my opinion..."
May 3, 2003, 2003
Leaving Home
At the age of 20, I gratefully embarked on a new life, married and literally as far from my immediate family as I could get on the continental United States. I would have gone anywhere with my husband and not thought twice about the distance put between my parents and me. I desperately needed the space to grow and develop without the constraints of my ultra-preppy home town where individuality and diversity were roadblocks to success.
I found my niche in the Pacific Northwest, and my husband and I entrenched ourselves in work and community. Of course I missed my family; holidays were difficult in the beginning. I remember sitting down to my first Thanksgiving in Washington, looking at a sea of familiar dishes in a very foreign setting. I wept openly, sobbing for my mother and feeling utterly alone. Still, I never regretted my decision. I am who I am today because we removed ourselves from a restrictive community and away from my extremely controlling mother-in-law.
We started our own family after nine years of marriage, and Seattle has played a large role in shaping the lives of our own children. They grew up as true city kids, living in a faster-paced, more diverse and culturally more exciting atmosphere than I did. Both have lived abroad on their own and traveled throughout Europe without us, and my husband and I have always known that although our children love Seattle, their career choices would eventually lead to major moves. I'm comfortable with this. I only hope that their reasons for leaving home hinge not on getting as far away from us as possible but rather on getting the best out of their careers and life choices.
In a few weeks, my daughter will move to Boston and embark on a new career. This excites me, and I'm filled with joy because she is moving for all the right reasons. Still, although she has not lived in our house for more than a few months in the last six years, she's been in Seattle for five of those, so I feel very close to my daughter. We've become real adult friends. My husband and I have enjoyed spur-of-the-moment dinners, errand runs, and coffee chats with our daughter and her boyfriend as well as planned events--celebrations with all the frou-frous and traditions. Now, however, five hours and thousands of miles will separate us, and though e-mail and cheap phone cards make communication easy, it just won't be the same. Happily, our daughter's boyfriend is also moving to Boston in the near future because of an ideal graduate school offer, so both of them can continue their loving relationship, secure in the knowledge that neither has had to compromise the best next-step in life.
I want my children to miss me when they leave home, and I want them to look forward to my visits and not see them as obligations or impositions. I can think of nothing that would sadden me more than the notion that a visit from me would be a necessary but dreaded event. On the other hand, I certainly would never want my offspring to feel the need to stay close to home just because of their parents. A symbiotic relationship would only prove we've done a poor job of raising functional adults. I don't fear this! Anyone who knows my children knows their fierce independence and self-reliance. Those characteristics may have made the teen years a challenge for us, but I can think of no traits more important in today's world.
Our son and daughter succeed in all they do because of their creative talents and independent, liberal thinking. I'm proud of them, and when I say good-bye to my daughter and feel the pain of her leaving home, I'll know that her father and I will travel with her in her heart and spirit. Best of all, in the near future I'll finally visit the East and see Boston and New York, because I'll have a savvy, fun, free personal guide at my disposal. Who could ask for more?
