Great Book

I found a really good book at the library the other day and decided if I'm going to read something like this it had better be plenty in advance from the time that the events will be taking place. It's about a woman and her teenage daughter and the trek they take across the country to drop the daughter off at college. I must forwarn you, if you are about to embark on this adventure, the book isn't going to leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. In the end it all works out, and the mother realizes that, yes, life does go on and she makes it just fine with an empty nest.

The author had so many great quotes that I just had to write them down, and will share some of them with you.

"It's been marked on the kitchen calendar for weeks - the expiration date on her childhood"

Are you kidding me??? The expiration date on her childhood?? I never thought about it that way, but so, so true. Once they leave, that's it. Hopefully, if everything goes right, they won't be back. At least not to live there full time.

".....when a child leaves for college, it is the end of something. Other than birth or death, leaving home for any reason is the most extreme of life transitions. One moment we are a family of three. The next, we've lost a vital member. It's a true loss, only people don't understand your grief. They don't send you sympathy cards or invite you to join a support group. They don't flock to comfort you. They don't come to your door bearing tuna casseroles and bottles of Cold Duck and platters of cookies on theur good chintz china. Instead, the journey to college is a rite of passage we mark as a joyous occasion, one we celebrate by buying luggage and books on how to build a fulfilling life. But really, if you ask any mother, she'll tell you that deep down, we want to mark it as a loss, a funeral of sorts. We never show our sorrow though. Our sadness stays in the shadows like something slightly shameful."

When I read that, my chest became tight. I had to talk myself down. I have a whole year. I don't even have a 2012 calendar yet, so in my world, next August doesn't even exist yet.

In this last quote, the author is talking about a woman and her toddler in a restaurant that the character has noticed.

"It's easy to recognize a little of myself in the weary, distracted mother. I used to be like her - preoccupied with matters of no importance, never seeing the secretive, invisible passage of time slip by until it was gone. Yet if someone had deigned to point this out, I would have been baffled, maybe even indignant. Disregard my child? What do you take me for?
However, when you're with a toddler who takes 45 minutes to eat a chicken nugget, the moments drag. Or when your baby has the croup at 3:00 a.m. and you're sitting in the bathroom with the steam on full blast, crying along with her because you're both so tired and miserable - those nights seem to have no end. 
From my perspective at the other end of childhood, I want to tell the young mother what I know now - that when a child is little, the days roll by at a leaden pace, blurring together. You're like a cartoon character, blithely oblivious while crossing a precarious wooden bridge, never knowing it's on fire behind you, buring away while you go. Sure, everybody says to enjoy your kids while they're little, because they'll be grown before you know it, but nobody ever really believes it. The woman at the next table simply wouldn't see the bridge, see time eatning up the moments like a fire-breathing dragon."  

I love this, because I do have the chance to do it again with the little kids. I try so hard not to take the time for granted. I know very well how fast those childhood years go by, and you're left wondering if you filled those days with enough memories to last a lifetime.

I'm so happy that I came across this book this summer rather than next. I highly recomend it to mom's who are close to this stage in life.