Your Empty Nest

          Today’s post comes from Lisa Robinson of The Zeno Group, which is the first major public relations agency with a consultancy devoted to American women! Enjoy and make sure to take a look at Lisa’s site!

          The packing has begun. Freshman year begins officially in four weeks and the house is aflutter with Bed, Bath & Beyond Coupons (we have 50), Staple’s circulars and boxes. Amid the packing tape and handling instructions are portable pieces of my daughter’s life. She has chosen with care the personal items to bring 5,000 miles away to help make her dorm a bit like home. As a mom who has always travelled with a near-full medicine cabinet and drives a car voted by friends as, “the car we most want to be stranded in,” due to the inordinate amount of survival supplies, what tools can I give my daughter to cope with any disaster she might encounter?

          It is as though I can send her away, just as long as I know she is safe from any harm that could ever happen in life. I know there are a ton of books on surviving college, but I cannot find chapters on, “How to Survive and Instantly Mend a Broken Heart.” Where is the elixir for, “A Really Horrible, Bad Day?” What secret charm can I affix around her neck (there must be an amulet out there) that provides a protective bubble that when bad things head her way, they simply bounce off. That pain in your heart that you feel when you first see a child being mean to yours on the playground, evolves over the years. It matures, as they do, with the knowledge that learning to fall down is as important as learning to get back up. We all know the dangers of rescuing our kids and most have managed to overcome the need to solve their problems. But now, as I watch my daughter on the verge of a wonderful new chapter, I yearn to stamp a sign on her (perhaps below her tattoo) that says, “Please World Handle with Care.”

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