Old, but proud, I must say. On Saturday, May 8th, my oldest daughter graduated Cum Laude with her Bachelor's degree in psychology. She worked really hard for the past four years, and earned many honors for leadership, community-building and academic achievement in that period.
So, here I am, with 2 years left before I get my Bachelor's, while my daughter is looking at grad school and trying to decide which of her numerous recommendations she's going to use. I'm awfully proud of her, but does she REALLY have to make me feel woefully inadequate? I always thought that her doing well in school and life would be enough, but now, I can't help but feel that I have to work even harder just to keep from disappointing her.
I know that I should just be happy for her, but I can't help thinking that now I have to work twice as hard just to keep up. Do all parents of college grads feel this way, or am I just weird? I guess the fact that she cited me as one of her role models in an interview she gave last month when she was selected "Student of the Block" has something to do with it.
I know that this isn't all that much of a diary; it's more of a stream of incoherence, but I wonder if other people feel this way when their eldest graduates college. I feel suddenly very old and unprepared for having an adult child, rather than a child child. I wonder if she still needs me, or if I'm just going to drive her as nuts as my own mother does me. I know that I have raised her to know right from wrong, and she has proven that she has a very good head on her shoulders, but I'm not sure I'm ready to "let go" at this point in time. For so long, she (along with her baby sister)has been pretty much the center of my universe, so I don't know how to stop my orbit and change direction. I know that I need to let her live her life and just be there in the background, ready to support her, but I've never had to do that before. How do other people adjust to this?
Any and all suggestions/advice will be greatly appreciated.