As we're deep into the season of college admit letters, decisions, happiness, heartbreak, limbo, and letters of intent, I'm posting some ramblings from a couple years ago when Arjun was leaving home for his freshman year. I didn't publish this then because I was too sad. Twenty months in, I still feel sad from time to time, but I'm currently typing with a smile on my face.
You were always moving away from me - rolling, crawling, tottering, walking, running, running, running. When you were small and your neck smelled like sour milk, your hands sticky with peanut butter, you'd grab my sleeve before you fell on the tile. Righting yourself awkwardly, you'd stumble away, then look back at me - clapping and screeching madly. Sometimes, you'd come careening back around, hair flopping wildly, drool flowing down your chin.
But now it seems that I can barely remember the coming back and all I see is the constant going away. Please stop. Please stand still. Let me look at you. All these angles out of chubby flesh. How did we get here? I mean, how are we at this moment - in this moment - right now? As I hear the first notes of "Pomp and Circumstance", I panic and I pull down on the neckline of my top which is nowhere near my neck. That feeling of ratcheting toward the first drop on a rollercoaster ride: it's coming, no way to stop it, can't get off, excited, terrified. I turn to Bharat, grab his hand and whisper, "I'm not ready...." and I start to miss you even before you've actually left. I flash to a memory of you running - actually to a picture Taara edited of you running - everything is sepia: trees, dirt, sky, and the only color is the yellow of your uniform in the desolate landscape of Montgomery Hill.
You were always moving away from me - rolling, crawling, tottering, walking, running, running, running. When you were small and your neck smelled like sour milk, your hands sticky with peanut butter, you'd grab my sleeve before you fell on the tile. Righting yourself awkwardly, you'd stumble away, then look back at me - clapping and screeching madly. Sometimes, you'd come careening back around, hair flopping wildly, drool flowing down your chin.
But now it seems that I can barely remember the coming back and all I see is the constant going away. Please stop. Please stand still. Let me look at you. All these angles out of chubby flesh. How did we get here? I mean, how are we at this moment - in this moment - right now? As I hear the first notes of "Pomp and Circumstance", I panic and I pull down on the neckline of my top which is nowhere near my neck. That feeling of ratcheting toward the first drop on a rollercoaster ride: it's coming, no way to stop it, can't get off, excited, terrified. I turn to Bharat, grab his hand and whisper, "I'm not ready...." and I start to miss you even before you've actually left. I flash to a memory of you running - actually to a picture Taara edited of you running - everything is sepia: trees, dirt, sky, and the only color is the yellow of your uniform in the desolate landscape of Montgomery Hill.
I'm absolutely bereft in my well-completed task of shepherding you to college. Now we are walking away from you - up Durant, turning the corner into the parking garage- and there is a physical jolt in my chest when I hear your text tone. I feel panicked/delighted/sad that we've gone 100 feet away from you and you're texting. Bharat stops walking and gives me a quizzical look. My eyes well up and I let out a 'ha!' as I see you've sent an MP3 of the birthday song you composed for my 50th: "Happy Birthday, Amma" - and in that moment, I remember the pride I felt that day, hearing a line from Happy Birthday you'd cleverly woven into the end of the composition.
Two weeks later, when you live there more than you live here, I mournfully feel the shape of your loss as I blubber through several Indigo Girls songs (remembering your smile as you turned to me at the Mountain Winery concert last summer and we bellowed the chorus of "Closer to Fine" together) and marinate in the aching chord progressions of "Fleet of Hope" until I feel dehydrated. Bharat makes room for my sadness. He listens, we talk our sad talk, he lets me be.
Thinking back I knew I'd seen it: the looks on parents' faces, the sighs, the tears...but I thought all that would be so temporary compared to the celebration of sending you off to college. No one told me....I mean, I guess I didn't quite get it. Then a couple more weeks pass and the sadness starts to feel self-indulgent. I start to get on my own nerves so I turn my attention to your Labor Day visit. Taara and I debate whether I should bake banana or pumpkin bread, which soup I'll whip up, and if you'll want masala dosa. Then Labor Day, and you, come and go. But this space you leave, each time you leave, feels less endless and undefined; still sad but less free-floating, less unmoored, less unhinged sadness.
By November it slowly occurs to me that you'll come and go and come and go. In your absence, Taara and I fall into a new rhythm. We watch Jane the Virgin and 13 Reasons Why processing each character and plot point languidly because we don't have to make your cross country meet or rush to cheer your 1600M. With this slower pace, some tautness leaks out of me and I begin to unclench my body and my heart. I stretch and reach out to feel the shape of your loss; the edges are less jagged, the structure more defined. Some days partially refill with my confidence and decreasing worry...until I turn the corner by your room and find a Nike running sock. As I finger the L stitching, I smile remembering how you had to wear two L's or two R's on race day(never the L & R together) and I'm thrown off, thrown back a bit. But then the phone rings. It's you.
Two weeks later, when you live there more than you live here, I mournfully feel the shape of your loss as I blubber through several Indigo Girls songs (remembering your smile as you turned to me at the Mountain Winery concert last summer and we bellowed the chorus of "Closer to Fine" together) and marinate in the aching chord progressions of "Fleet of Hope" until I feel dehydrated. Bharat makes room for my sadness. He listens, we talk our sad talk, he lets me be.
Thinking back I knew I'd seen it: the looks on parents' faces, the sighs, the tears...but I thought all that would be so temporary compared to the celebration of sending you off to college. No one told me....I mean, I guess I didn't quite get it. Then a couple more weeks pass and the sadness starts to feel self-indulgent. I start to get on my own nerves so I turn my attention to your Labor Day visit. Taara and I debate whether I should bake banana or pumpkin bread, which soup I'll whip up, and if you'll want masala dosa. Then Labor Day, and you, come and go. But this space you leave, each time you leave, feels less endless and undefined; still sad but less free-floating, less unmoored, less unhinged sadness.
By November it slowly occurs to me that you'll come and go and come and go. In your absence, Taara and I fall into a new rhythm. We watch Jane the Virgin and 13 Reasons Why processing each character and plot point languidly because we don't have to make your cross country meet or rush to cheer your 1600M. With this slower pace, some tautness leaks out of me and I begin to unclench my body and my heart. I stretch and reach out to feel the shape of your loss; the edges are less jagged, the structure more defined. Some days partially refill with my confidence and decreasing worry...until I turn the corner by your room and find a Nike running sock. As I finger the L stitching, I smile remembering how you had to wear two L's or two R's on race day(never the L & R together) and I'm thrown off, thrown back a bit. But then the phone rings. It's you.
