Adjusting

Parents' weekend in New Haven was very nice. We had been looking forward to it immensely and it was beyond lovely to see Natalie and revisit the old town, to show her places we had gone and to see where she is settling in: the ultimate club team, the Branford Buttery, to hear about her classes, to visit art shows, etc.

And yet. When we left on Sunday she was rather sad and, on the one hand, that infected me. On the other, it made me feel good to feel so needed by her. But since then she has been largely unresponsive to my trying to reconnect with her, except a brief call when she was confused by an odd text that I had gotten but which seems to have been intended for her.

She is of course distancing herself because she needs to, it is healthy. She has gone off to college and lives over 500 miles away and needs to fully stand on her own two feet. My brain knows that perfectly well, but it is hard for the rest of me to accept it because the last couple of decades have been dedicated significantly to her. This is just a continuation of what began just before she turned 9 when she decided she would no longer snuggle with me "because I'm growing up" (a direct quote -- see here), and since then I've always looked for ways to stay close to her even as she separates. Parks and Rec, sushi, used book stores, hiking, theater, etc.

It's just hard.