So. Tomorrow.

[captainsblog]

The boxes are packed. The last-minute items, best we can tell, have been purchased. This time tomorrow night, Emily will once again be a now and native Rochesterian. She's even been assigned to Nathaniel Rochester Hall for her room, just to impress the connection on it.

Late this afternoon, I finished the trial that had threatened to spill into tomorrow, maybe even sucking up parts of Friday. Even with it now behind me, I will still be busy before we leave tomorrow- she can't check in until mid-afternoon, so we're looking at a 1-ish departure- but at least I will be able to help with the load-in, and do all the touring and pouring-over of All The Things that await her there.

Thursday, it'll likely be Just Me going back for some final academic events, and then, I come Home Alone.



She'll be fine. We'll be fine. Neither of which is to say we will be so easily.

One of the about-our age women from church gave Em one of the nicest compliments I can imagine the other morning. As striking as her hair had been, Denise said, the more neutral brown makes her gorgeous face, and especially her baby blues, really stand out. As the donor of those particular chromosomes, I took that as an incredibly nice thing to say.

Cameron is over now, laughing his fool head off and enjoying her company. We are so glad he decided she was worth sticking with, and if necessary fighting for; we felt, and feel, much the same way about him.

I think I'll be passing out sometime soon:)

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

You guys will ALL do marvelously. But you're right, it won't be easy at points.

We're totally reminiscing about going to college, now that you have it on my mind. I don't know how worried my parents were: on the one hand I was incredibly capable and had an older friend at school and they had three other kids to worry about, and on the other, I'd been diagnosed with clinical depression the week before I left for college, and my older friend was the guy who wanted to share his Christianity with everyone and didn't have great social capital.

r_ness says it's amazing, it was probably a relief to his parents to have him off to the dorms, but college was 8 miles away and his dad _worked_ there, less than a block away from the frosh dorms. He says his dad was really good about being hands off, never saw his dorm room all four years, and was happy to give a ride back home at the end of a workday every week or two. Completely different from me, moving into the same frosh dorms and having my parents return home 500 miles away.

I guess college is different for everyone.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I don't think my parents worried or cared much about anything other than whether it was gonna cost them any more than we'd expected. Which it did, but it largely fell on me, not them.

Also, I totally admire you for surviving even more of an Old School Ivy experience than I did. We had the Cow College rep (and four genuine SUNY schools under the Cornell umbrella to boot), but there was still plenty of old money around to make my no-money upbringing a real burden. I overcame it through smarts, humor and some dumb luck inherent in populating my dorm, not only with preppy assholes, but some of the most genuine and caring people I'd ever want to meet (more than a few of whom I still keep in touch with).

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I still can't tell you how the hell I made it through such an Old School Ivy. I guess it was sheer stubbornness. I learned a lot, got mediocre grades because I refused to take the easy way out despite crappy preparation and no AP credits or credits for foreign language, and picked pretty much the hardest and most broadly-based science major I could do and not fail out. (i.e., not Physics or Math.)

I met some marvelous, wonderful people. I'm still in touch with the woman I roomed with all four years. I met some amazing men, and I think the most amazing ones are, well, the two I'm going out with now. I have an amazing cohort of friends from the band and from Storyreading, and years later, I'm finally realizing that I'm not some poor kid from farm country who ended up there by mistake. The slightly better financial aid was the reason I didn't end up at your alma mater, and Cornell actually called me to ask HOW someone from farm country managed to get into Yale.

I changed a lot. When I started college I still hadn't realized why I found other women's butts so distracting. I knew I couldn't toe the Catholic line about sexuality, but I hadn't found my own safe and healthy system for coping. I was really uncomfortable the first few times I met people who were in open relationships, because they sounded so scary. Clearly, I've figured out all of these things to my satisfaction.

We had a lot of preppy assholes, and I went in with a huge class chip on my shoulder that I could not articulate. I'm getting better at explaining that and helping others with those problems, too.

Thank you! It's great when someone notices those things.

[nentikobe.livejournal.com]

I remember the day my parents dropped me off. I was so grateful to them for making the trip out with the van... it was with a cold stomach that I hugged them and they set off...

it was much the same one that I felt when they both came to the airport to see me board the flight to come out here.

I was so grateful. And I am happy to see there are still parents who think that way.