Empty Nest -- Again

Hello, to all my friends! I realize that I have been missing from our blogging community for about two years. Which surprisingly coincides closely to the time our 16-year-old granddaughter came to live with us.

Now, I have raised two sons, so I have faced the trials of the teenage years -- I am no novice to child-rearing. But these last two years have been about anticipation (of everything) and mixed emotions (about everything) ! Falling in love ( let's see, she is in love for the seventh or eighth time ), trying to fit into her favorite pair of jeans
( jeans from the Junior section when she is 6'1"--"but they're soooo cute"), nervous picking at those zits and sores ( I should have bought stock in Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Band-Aid ), ditching classes…sigh!, and a total slob inside her bedroom (she says I have OCD). She has been a mini tornado (we DO live in Oklahoma) with multiple personalities and mood swings; but, thankfully, she is also studious and an achiever.

Two weeks ago, she rented her first apartment, 120 miles away in Stillwater OK, where she will be attending Oklahoma State University. Yes, my studious achiever, will be an eighteen-year-old, almost junior, majoring in microbiology. I am overjoyed with her successes - highschool valedictorian, state champion soprano soloist, recipient of several scholarships, member of a national honor society. I worry that she is pushing herself too hard and too fast ( And recently found out that my worries have been correct. She is not a bright star this semester. Hopefully it will be a lesson well-learned and heeded ).

So, now I am free of worry (NOT!), free of teenage conflict (Hooray!), free to move back into MY bathroom, free to forget about cooking a nutritious dinner for a growing teenager, free to stay out as late as I want, free to sleep as late as I want, free to travel.

Free to cry because I miss her so.