An unconventional packing list

‘I've got nineteen books and those piles of CDs; but what about my 3D printer? And my crochet & Rubik's cubes?’ said the 19-year-old when I asked him what he's packing for university.

Photo by Emanuela Picone on Unsplash

I’ve recorded an audio again, so feel free to listen! As with the writing, all the slips, stumbles and hesitations are mine…I wrote this on Tuesday and am sending this out today, Thursday. I’m not sure that helps you follow the sequencing of this story, but I hope it helps a little!

Packing lists with a difference

There was no mention of clothes, toiletries, bedding or anything to cook or eat with in the list.

He’s had a year at home after taking A Levels last summer. A year spent working out whether university was right for him, and if it was, where and what to study. He’s enjoyed not being at school and earning money even if one of those jobs saw him back in school albeit with a lanyard denoting his new role as a member of staff rather than student.

His hair has grown, toppling his older brother from the leadership position in the curly hair stakes and he’s rapidly catching him up on the tattooed forearms league too. He’s been on a few trips with friends, and become a regular at the open mic and quiz night at the pub.

We’ve loved having him at home with his expanding vinyl and CD collection and a steady stream of stories featuring an ever-lengthening list of friends I can’t keep up with. His brain is quick and works differently from mine. It’s exhausting at times but a lot of fun.

He’s not my first child to leave home via university and it’s tempting to bat away the feelings I find difficult to name simply because this isn’t our first child leaving home rodeo.

He’s still my child and he’s leaving home and I feel this change even if I can’t find the words to express it.

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All hail the empty nesters and the almost empty nesters

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Talking about everything other than how we feel

It’s so tempting isn’t it, so easy to rattle off, ‘I’m fine’ when asked how we feel, especially when life is complicated, whether that’s complicated with a big ‘C’ or little ‘c’. The words on the feelings wheel sellotaped to the fridge door feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable to say out loud. Over the top. So much easier to sink back into ‘fine’. It seems like I never really learned any emotional vocabulary.

There was a lot of talking when I was growing up, especially by mum. Her endless phone calls with friends and her sister the stuff of family legend. Dad’s phone calls were far fewer and much shorter in length, yet he was a fabulous letter writer, certainly as a newly wed writing to mum. He went to AA meetings multiple times a week for several decades so at some point he must have talked about how he felt, I guess.

I don’t remember us talking about feelings generally though. It wasn’t something we did, especially if there was a chance that what we were feeling wasn’t a happy or content kind of feeling. It was very much a case of ‘one day at a time’ and let’s keep going.

I don’t know really what I’m saying here but it occurs to me as I type this is that I have learned to start listening to my body, asking it to show me what’s going on and how I’m feeling. That’s what I’m paying attention to.

Bella, age 13 1/2 years old on Ilkley Moor on Tuesday morning’s clear the head walk

The past few days there’s been a familiar leaden weight in my stomach. It feels tight, my breathing rapid and shallow. I wake to a headache above my right eye and there’s an annoying fatigue that lingers.

Sensations I recognise as my signs of, if not stress, then let’s say feeling out of sorts, signs that change is afoot. Too many young people coming and going. Not being able to keep up with who’s in, who’s out. Who needs a listening ear and who needs me to back off.

There’s change that’s out of my control and I feel like I need to tether myself to something that makes sense to me. I have a strong need to be at home or walking on the moor where I can clear my head. Going to work and writing helps as does seeing my fabulous reflexologist who soothes my nervous system, gets the energy flowing and balances me. My not so secret weapon in dislodging the boulder in my stomach.

Bursting with Ready Brek pride

That said, I’ve also been aware of a new feeling in my body that’s becoming increasingly familiar and most welcome. It’s like there’s a warmth in my chest. Light yet powerful, a bit like the Ready Brek glow. I noticed it first when the eldest graduated and landed his first job as a fully fledged adult. I noticed it again when the middle child had his place at uni confirmed, saying to me that he finally felt like he’d ‘made the right decision’. I felt it when I waved the youngest off on holiday with a friend and her family.

I guess this is what people mean by bursting with pride. And relief too that life does sometimes slot into place. It’s not that I haven’t been proud before, I have, I am proud of them, constantly. I guess this is the first time I felt it so strongly though.

So attuned has my nervous system been to life going wrong that I’m unused to this warm feeling. I like it and want more of it.

I like walking around with a relaxed smile, having happy news to share. I notice how different it feels from the heavy weight in my stomach I thought this had become a permanent fixture after too many years of death, of cancer, redundancy and relocation.

I didn’t really know how to do deep contentment and joy. If it was there, it was surface level, happy. All tight fixed smiles rather than a deep seated contentment.

Leaving home in different ways

I guess the additional layer of emotional complexity right now though is that it’s not just the middle child who’s leaving.

Tomorrow, we drive the teenager we’ve given a home to for the past year to university. They’re a care leaver and long time friend to my middle child.

For more than half of their young life they’ve lived with foster parents, and lived independently as a young teen (with support from a social worker, but still) before moving in with us last August. A move that would give them some safety and security so they could finish their A Levels without having to worry about well, everything.

They aced it and tomorrow they leave us for university and the mother of all adventures. So while there’s the middle child with his big hair and CDs, there’s also this young person who’s opened my eyes about family, home and what it truly means to be resilient in more ways than I can articulate right now.

Three humans, three chickens and a dog

What I do know is that as of the penultimate weekend in September there’ll just be three humans plus the dog and three chickens at home. Dinner for three - me, the husband and the 15-year-old. I feel for her already, she and the teenager developed the most beautiful friendship that I’m sure will endure, but it might take a while for things for it to settle into a new way of being.

I also notice, as I write this, the evening before the teenager leaves, the car packed to the gills with her belongings, that there’s a big difference to how it feels knowing someone is leaving and the reality when it happens. We’re antsy, overly polite and considerate with each other, I put on Mickyb’s skate songs Spotify playlist trusting 70s disco and 80s house to distract as we cobble together a final meal.

That looks a little bonkers written down, but it feels surreal that this evening is the teenager’s final evening living with us. That this is it. She may well return, the door will always be open to her but her new life lies ahead, and that might not include coming back here, at least not just yet, but who knows?

Our middle child though will be leaving in a slightly different way.

A new energy at home and a clearer surfaces

Our home will be quieter and yes, as the cliche goes, it will be so much tidier. Our middle child has never entirely got to grips with the words clean, tidy or declutter, his head too full of weird and wonderful things he wants to make and places he wants to be.

I guess, put simply we, I mean, I will miss them. Sadness at the end of this phase tempered with punch the air pride.

So spare a thought for our 15-year-old as she navigates life at home with me and her dad. Time will tell if having additional bedrooms to spread her clothes and make up into will be enough of a trade-off for being left with us on her own. She also has GCSEs next summer so maybe wish us luck too.

Thanks for reading (and listening), it feels so much better to have got these words and thoughts out. Please feel free to comment below or hit reply if this landed in your inbox rather than via the Substack App. I’d love to hear from you…

Harriet