MotherGuilt

So, everyone says, How was your trip to Boston? They ask me that with an excited gleam in their eye, as if I had fun, or should have....

...because that was the trip to bring my daughter to college. And here is my truthful answer: it was emotional, it was exhausting, I wanted to go home. The trip was expensive, and I had left the dogs home unattended. Overnight. Bad mother. Bad dog mother.

And I felt so guilty. I felt guilty because we aren't wealthy. I couldn't really afford the trip out there, couldn't afford meals out, couldn't afford to buy her little tables and shelving units for her room. Couldn't afford to stay out there 2 or 3 nights like the other parents, in the fancy hotel right near the college. Couldn't afford to spend the afternoon after she was all moved in out wandering the city shopping, buying lunch and then dinner out. Couldn't afford to then stay the entire next day after to attend day long parental orientation events. (Parent orientation? I kept thinking, Why? I am not going to college. But there we were, surrounded by the newest sociological phenomenon, 'helicopter parents', hovering over their kids' lives like the TV news team, noting, recording, commenting, and shepherding.)

And yet, what did I do every time I felt guilty? I gave her cash, the cash I had brought with me to buy us meals and whatnot. Just handed it over. Here take this, and I pray you will be okay. I pray you won't be homesick and you won't be mad at me and you will find friends immediately and will fit in and everything will work out gloriously well for you. As for me, this city is making me crazy and tired and all these emotions rushing around inside me like a crazed herd of unmilked Holsteins are leaving me exhausted and wishing I was in my little house drinking tea with soymilk and yelling at the cats to leave me alone.

So, there's the truthful answer to the question, How was your trip to Boston?

I hope you all still like me.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai