When My Parents Started to Accept I was My Own Person...

For me, this happened pretty recently. It was a number of days after I'd finally moved into my dorm. My parents were dropping off a few items I'd left at home in the hustle and bustle of packing and leaving. They pulled up in the family car, stepped out, greeted me, and handed me the things I needed. They asked me how things were going, but not in the normal way your parents ask how life is at the dinner table or when you get home from school. They asked in the way you ask someone you haven't seen in weeks. A person separate from your own life; so much so that you can't even venture a guess at what they've been up to.  I'd never made small talk with my parents in that way before. I'd talk that way with aunts and uncles that lived miles away, but with my parents, I never needed to catch them up on what I was eating, who I was with, what classes I was taking, etc. The kinds of things your parents don't know when you no longer live under their roof. It just felt a little funny to me.

Staying in Ithaca, New York (But Leaving My House)

My story doesn't involve nearly as much change and sadness as some others might. I've lived in Ithaca my entire life; my views, my values, and my beliefs have been shaped by the 18 years I've spent in this place. So when it came time to leave, it didn't feel so much like leaving to me, quite honestly. It felt like change, of course. It felt like a new adventure was beginning, with new people and new opportunities. But leaving? I never saw it that way. My mom certainly did, however. I'll never forget the Sunday morning we were preparing to head up to Ithaca College (a 20 minute drive at most). We were packed, we were prepared, it was time to go. But as my father and brother and sister and I lugged the last bit of luggage out of the house, my mom stopped us. She just wanted us to pause. It was all happening too fast, the end of the process that had consumed most of the past year of my life. We all sat down for a moment, in the living room, together. And my mom wanted us to pray together. Now I don't consider myself a religious person, and for me, personally, prayer wasn't at the top of my list of priorities that morning. But my mom has always needed it: the solace that prayer provides her. I wasn't about to deprive her of that. So we sat, silently, as my mom said a few words. And before she could finish, before the prayer's end, when we would load the car, and I'd drive off into the next chapter of my journey through life, she broke down. She sobbed, she bawled, she lost control, and she cried. And in that moment I realized that it was all a matter of perspective (like most things). From where I was sitting, moving a 20 minute drive away wasn't the end of the world. But to my mom, that 20 minutes was, and is, a life time.