A Good Good-Bye

Mac spent the summer as lead horse-wrangler at a ranch in Colorado. 

"I'm glad she's gone." I told myself. "I am happy she left."

This is how I rationalized not having her home during the summer. Our 21-year-old daughter had found herself a job in Colorado as a horse wrangler. She would be home for only three days the entire summer, the rest taken up by a summer job out West, then her usual gig at the Dutchess County Fair as an animal handler for friends in the Fish and Game pavilion. 

But I said, good. I was OK with it. 

After all, she is a senior this upcoming year. Over the course of her college career, she's spent less and less time at home. Spring break that freshman year in Costa Rica. Last year she spent eight weeks at her school's biological field station, required coursework for Environmental Conservation Biology majors. She learned to identify every tree in NYS, the intricate life cycles of mosses, and theorized about how temperature effects snapping turtle eggs. She was in her element. How do you begrudge her that?

I don't. I am happy for her. She most definitely makes the most of her life and the opportunities that arise. When I comment on her perhaps overdoing it, her answer is that she takes after me. OK. I'll give her that.

So, while I am happy for her (if I say it often enough, will it be true? hahaha!) I'm not saying I don't miss her. Don't get me started on the fact that 18 years is not enough time to spend with your kids, especially those of them we really like.

No. I miss her terribly. 

We enjoy each other's company. We finish each other's sentences. We text and like each other's posts on FB and Instagram even when we're sitting in the same room!

For nearly two years, she texted me good morning and good night with only a missed text if she had no cell coverage like at Cranberry Lake. After that, the cycle was broken. She now only texts on occasion. Not nearly as regularly and I was OK with that too.

While she was in Colorado, we PM'd each other much more frequently. Nearly every day, actually. She shared this new life she was living with me. She PM'd me when she got to ride a new horse. When she learned to drive a horse-drawn wagon. When she got tips. That she got food poisoning in Denver and had to keep pulling off the rode to throw up on her three-hour drive back to the ranch. That she was lonely. That she loved Steamboat Springs. And asked if she took this job again after she graduated from school, a full time job where she was paid well and they provided her housing, would that count as having a job upon graduating? "Hell yeah!" I wrote her!

And that's when it struck me.

For the first time in my life, someone left me and it was OK. I wasn't abandoned. She did not abandon me. She was still there for me. And (how many parents can say this?) I know she relied on me being there for her too. She sought me out. Without obligations, she came to me. She wanted me. On that long drive while she was sick to her stomach, she wanted her mommy.

When I had my kids, I felt that. That feeling of being whole, feeling wanted, feeling needed and vice-versa. As they grew up, I wondered how much they really liked me, you know, verses needed their mommy. But, I never really wondered because it was evident in the fact that both kids would plop themselves down on my bed when they got home from school and tell me about their day. It was obvious when Macallan would hang out with her boyfriend on the couch in the living while we all watched TV. It was apparent when my son and his friends would keep me company in the kitchen, sitting on the floor, in my way, as I made them snacks, made dinner or some dessert. "Can I help you with anything, Mrs. Durkin?" one of Markham's friends is known to ask just about every time he comes over. But you still wonder when the bottom will fall out and they go months without seeing you or calling.

I think about how little time I spent with my parents growing up. And how much they must have worried when I went off to college. And they should have worried. God knows I did plenty to make them scared for me...I have no idea how I survived the '80's!

And here I am. With a high school senior and senior in college to show for it.

The Big Aha!
And this summer, when Macallan was 3,000 miles away, I realized something significant. I felt something I had never felt before. Even though she was gone, she never truly left me.

Sounds so simple right? But coming from a place of abandonment, I have never felt that before. Because, unlike with Peter, for most of our life together, I felt like whenever he would go fishing or hunting, he was going because he didn't want to be with me. I thought he did it to get away from me. But I've slowly realized, that's not the case. For Peter, fishing is a very important outlet, something he had to do, like with me and writing. If he didn't do it, he would explode. I didn't get that until recently. I didn't know.

Can you imagine, I'm 50+ years old, Peter and I will celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary next month, and it's only starting to sinking in? Maybe one day, on our 50th Wedding Anniversary, maybe then, I'll believe he won't leave me, but for now, the verdict is still out...

But with Macallan this summer, it was clear. It was like a loud resounding bell. She may be away, which is something I think I better get used to, but she loves me and will always love me. I'm her mom, after all and I'd like to think I've earned that. But I also can't tell you how profoundly I felt that love when I realized how much I meant to her.

I believe abandonment issues are the core of my being. A personality trait for me. A quirky accent. A swagger. A signature smirk that makes me, me.

But this summer, with Macallan's help, this abandoned daughter came full circle. With the unwavering conviction of my own daughter's love, I came that much closer to ridding myself of this burden, this abandonment albatross.

I truly never thought I'd be saying this, but I really am so glad she left. It certainly was a good, good-bye.