Double PPD

Tonight my (19-nearly-20-year-old) baby flew off to college again, saying once again that he won't be home at Thanksgiving because it is too much plane flying for one weekend with us, and he hates flying. Freaking Massachusetts! So we won't see him till Christmas.

I have been keening and crying for an hour, as I washed the dishes and began to nervously tackle cleaning my frighteningly-cluttered house at 3 am. They just do not prepare you for this in parenting manuals. He left me his childhood photo albums to keep for him because he doesn't want them at college, and because he is (oh help me God) moving out of his childhood bedroom, as his little brother is 13 and wants to take it over. Even fewer reasons to come home, now that his old room will be gone. He says he doesn't care, but please. Part of him has to.

So I have been looking at pictures of him in his Kindergarten years, when I was, shall we say, significantly more important in his life. And keening as I look.

It is not fair that his last week with us after his long summer acting situation was filled with me crazily trying to finish "Camilla" and hardly ever having any time to be home, and Terry in a show. Tallis, bless his generous heart, has done a great deal of caretaking of his cabin-fevered brother, who's been on restriction and unable to be on the net more than an hour a day. Today, Terry's and my only real day off, we all went up to Snoqualmie, ate at the Salish, and walked a trail, which was beautiful and loving, but also typically upsetting, as we tried to keep his little brother entertained and vaguely level.

I am floored by the sudden lack of an intense focus now that my film post-production is wrapped, combined with the SECOND time my eldest cheerfully went off to "not think about us at home" for many months, which is exactly what he should be doing.

It doesn't get easier when they go the second time. I sat on the couch next to him in the hour before he left, and as I did, tears just fell silently down my cheeks until he noticed and said "Aww" softly. His precious self sitting right next to me, with maybe not a lot of that in the future; it just tore me.

And tomorrow I have to figure out what to do now. Several people want me to do several things, some creative, and I just want to crawl into my bed and go fetal for a week.

Now Krevlorneswath of the Death Wok Clan is licking my arm. Cats are excellent. And nearly-finished movies are too. And it is a good thing to have a brilliant Sophomore in college already knowing that he is doing three plays this year there. And I should just be proud of him, not complain.

But I am hollow. Like a lot of middleaged mothers are, this time of year.

Sigh. God bless us, every one.