When Your Kid Moves Out, It’s Okay to Feel Loss

As I pulled out of the driveway, my eyes misted over and there was a physical catch in my throat. The car slowly moved out into the street and away from my daughter’s new apartment. Also away from my daughter.

If there is any song fitting enough to be the soundtrack to this moment it is “Slipping Through My Fingers” by Abba and from the Mama Mia soundtrack.

Slipping through my fingers all the time

I try to capture every minute

The feeling in it

Slipping through my fingers all the time

Do I really see what’s in her mind

Each time I think I’m close to knowing

She keeps on growing.

A bittersweet song for a melancholy moment where excitement, loss, fear, and love all get mixed together.

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There have been several moments in my life that have prompted the need for a movie soundtrack. Maybe you have experienced this too? Music to be playing in the background of your life as a scene develops. Maybe you’re driving down an open highway, perhaps on a road trip somewhere.

I’ve opened the sun-roof to my Mini Cooper, allowing the wind to rush in, blowing through my hair while the Kinks sing “Sunny Afternoon.” Or maybe it’s more of a driving beat like the one in “Castle on the Hill” by Ed Sheeran.

Haven’t we all been racing to meet a deadline and thought for certain we heard the “Chariots of Fire” theme song playing.

There are milestone moments in all of our lives. And yes, maybe there is music playing as the backdrop to these developing, pivotal scenes.

My daughter moving into her first apartment had me experiencing one of these moments recently.

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When your kids are first toddling around, everything in your life becomes absorbed by them. There are days where it seems an endless stream of wiping noses, fixing snacks, refereeing sibling disputes, and giving hugs. Lots of hugs. The years ahead seem vast until they’ll leave the nest.

I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter

That funny little girl.

Sometimes on the hardest parenting days when the kids are constantly crying and all you crave is five minutes alone, you might briefly fantasize about life in the future. That life once the kids are grown and you’re an empty nester.

Those 18 or 19 years slip through your fingers quicker than you might realize.

But, as I watched my daughter pack one belonging, then two, then multiple belongings into multiple boxes, I realized this moment of melancholy is also filled with joy. As she began preparing for her move I reminded myself how proud I am to have her as my daughter. She is strong, intelligent, witty, and beautiful. She is also ready for this moment. To strike out on her own and seize this moment in her life.

She keeps on growing

Slipping through my fingers all the time.

She is one of the people in this world who knows exactly what I am thinking merely by a passing expression crossing my face. She and I have shared many ups and downs. Together we’ve consoled each other through heartbreak and first loves, divorce, and struggling to put family pieces back together. We’ve survived term papers, grades, and my teaching her how to drive. (And yep, I reflexively stepped on that imaginary brake pedal a few times.)

She keeps on growing.

The first time my daughter drove away, all on her own, was a nerve-wracking test of trust for me. I sent her off into the world with a wave and blown kiss into the air. But then she returned to the safety of the home nest.

This moment, pulling out of her driveway feels just as nerve-wracking. Only she is the one staying behind, waving, and blowing kisses in my direction. And I’m the only one returning to the home nest.

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture

And save it from the funny tricks of time.

As a parent, you want your children to grow up and lead independent lives. Heck, that is what you train them for. What no one has prepared you for is the quiet hole left in your heart. Its name is loss and is akin to grief.

“It will be quieter around here. You can write without any noise or distractions,” she says to me, trying to soften the inevitable.

“You have done so much for me. Now go have fun and do you,” she adds on.

I could say the same to her. Back atcha kid!

Much of my identity is wrapped in being a mother. Not all of it, for I work, I am a writer, a partner, a woman. But I know this role is adaptive. I continue to be here, as mom, advisor, cheerleader, and friend.

Grieving is normal with change. It shows up with loss, in any form not just when someone passes away. The change in our attachment can also be felt as loss.

As much as I wish to call my daughter every day, (ok, maybe 2 or 3 times a day) I do not. I recognize she is stepping into her own life. Experiencing the freedoms which come with independence, the freedoms to make her choices and formulate her identity.

So I text mostly and check in by phone every couple of days. This will gradually shift and become easier, for both of us. She knows, deep down, I am here. From time to time we all need the support of a safety net, for we may fall or just fear falling. I am her net when she needs me.

Nothing can break this bond

Slipping through my fingers all the time

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MaryRose is a writer/speaker/advocate living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest between mountains and water; she is a traveler, massage therapist, a vegetarian foodie, and mom to two amazing grown kids. And now an empty nester.

Contact her via her website MaryRoseDentonWriter, @maryrosedentonauthor on FaceBook, or on Twitter.

She believes in Meraki, which is what happens when you leave a piece of yourself, your soul, creativity, or love, in your work. When you love doing something, anything, so much that you put something of yourself into it.