This Girl...

I ended my last post saying stay tuned for My Heart is Full Part 2. This is not that post, but my heart is indeed once again, quite full.

This time last year, I was moving a nervous 18 year old college freshman to college. The college I really wanted to attend when I was her age but was unable to. It was very bittersweet leaving her there that day, and I probably would have cried my eyes out the entire two hour drive home if I hadn’t had her boyfriend with me. He didn’t cry, but he certainly was down in the dumps and not very talkative. He kept my emotions in check that day for sure. 

Rachel is my child who seems to feel things deeply and take things to heart in ways that remind me so much of myself. She worried because she didn’t really know anyone who was going there except one friend from high school and her roommate, who she had just met during the summer. She wondered who she would hang out with, eat with, walk to classes with, which sorority she would be asked to bid, etc. I tried my best to reassure her that everything would work out, that she would find her way, but I wasn’t sure she believed me.

Sorority recruitment was a tough week for her as she had to deal with a couple of her new friends being offered bids in a sorority that she wanted but did not get and then ultimately receiving a bid from a sorority that was not her first or even second choice. She called me in tears that day because her friend got in the sorority she wanted to get into. I did my best to put on my calm mom hat and told her to give it a chance. I told her to ask herself if she was upset because she really LOVED that particular sorority, or if she was only upset because her friend got in and she didn’t.

I said all this to her as someone who was not in a sorority, who never wanted to be in a sorority. Someone whose friends made fun of snooty sorority girls when I was in college.

Karma bit me in the a$$. Now, my daughter was one of those sorority girls whose ego was taking a beating because she didn’t get asked to join the one she really wanted. My heart ached for her ache.

She took my advice (for once!) and gave it a chance.

Now, here we are a year later. And I am pretty sure that she can’t imagine her life at school without her sorority sisters.

She now LOVES Tri Sigma. She has made some wonderful friends. She has spent this summer making and buying gifts for her future little sister that she will have after recruitment in a few weeks. She has a chair position in her chapter. She is a mentor for incoming freshman, which is why she moved in a week before classes starts. As I helped her move into the Tri Sigma house today, I couldn’t help but think back to this time last year. She has a job this year, and she reapplied to be a student ambassador, even though she was so upset when she didn’t get that job last year.

She has come so far, and I am so proud of her! She has persevered and not given up.

She started college last year not sure of what she wanted to major in, but now she knows. She wants to be a teacher, which does not surprise me at all. She wants to teach really young kids—preschool or kindergarten. Rachel has always had a wonderful way with kids, and I have no doubt she will be a fantastic teacher. She is considering special education.

Did I say she has come so far, and I am so proud of her?

Oh, yeah, I did!

I’m writing just the facts here because that is what comes easy for me.

This time last year, I fought tears the whole way home after dropping her off because I didn’t want to upset her boyfriend.

This year, I didn’t cry even though her boyfriend was not with me. I smiled the whole way home. I smiled because this girl I love is finding her way in the world and I am so proud of her. I smiled because I remembered myself at her age, and I was in no way near where she is at right now.

I sometimes wonder/worry if I have done a good job as a parent. What parent doesn’t wonder that? Days like today don’t erase those worries, but days like today do give me a teensy little glimmer of hope that I have done something right. I have a dear, sweet daughter with a heart of gold.

Look at her! I look at these photos and think, “Be still my heart! This girl is mine, and I am so proud of her!”