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So I promised to tell you about our recent college visit and our own “trail of tears.”  Mae and I attended an early registration event at her college-of-choice. This was for incoming freshmen to finalize their schedules, get the financial details in order, take a student picture, etc. 

We approach the table that handles on-site housing and meal cards and such. Here’s where the trail of tears begins. We sit down, and because I had called this woman the day before to tell her Mae wouldn’t be staying on campus, she starts in, sweetly: “Now Mom, I know you’re feeling bad that your daughter won’t be in the dorms. I could hear it in your voice yesterday, and…

“Maybe you should talk to her,” I say, and point to Mae. “She’s really having a hard time.”

So then she continues her conversation, directed toward Mae. She tells her she’ll still be able to attend a lot of activities and meet people that way and…

I look over and see a swell of tears threatening to spill over Mae’s lashes; her lips are pursed, holding back a quiver of emotion. “Oh no,” I think, as my own emotions start to react. We stand up and can’t even squeak out a goodbye or a thank you as we turn to go, since now we’re both about to totally lose it.   

We managed to pull ourselves together while waiting to meet with the financial people. Then Mae spies our neighbors from the next street over! Turns out the daughter is attending. I notice a glimmer of hope in her eyes as she asks the girl if she’s living on campus. (Maybe she’ll say “no” and we’ll have another carpooling option.) Hope goes out the door as the girl says “yes” instead; and here comes another set of tears from Mae.  We have composure for a few minutes, and then she spots another girl that she knows from elementary school who actually lives within minutes of the school. Turns out even she is going to be on campus. More tears! 

The other clencher is that we thought she would be able to schedule a three-day week, so that she would only have to travel the 40 minutes to/from school on those days. But that was not going to happen, since the art classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And since Art is her major, there’d be no getting around that. 

So now we’re trying to figure out how we can afford another five grand more a year. It’s forcing me to take my job hunting a lot more seriously. I’m hoping that in the next month I have something lined up and we can go ahead and get that dorm room for Mae. After all, she’s worked so hard these last four years. 

I’ll keep you posted on our efforts to get her on campus. In the meantime, check out this heartwarming post by Annarchy about her son on the verge of experiencing dorm life and separation from family. (Note: You might want to have the kleenex on standby.) 

I’m so glad there’s another blogger writing about this stage of life. Are there any others out there? If so, and if you find this post, I hope you’ll leave a comment about your own experiences.