The Power Of Letting Go

Back To School is a bitter sweet time for me as a mom. I remember all the years of shopping for supplies, outfits, shoes, backpacks and two years ago, shopping for dorm items, getting ready to send my son off to college in Virginia. Today I’m sharing the freedom and The Power Of Letting Go.

The Power Of Letting Go

Explaining Letting Go

So many mixed feelings at that time, so hard to let him go, knowing he needed the experience but feeling a void inside, the empty bedroom…the clean house….no more shoes on the floor, no more plates upstairs, no more towels all over the place. 

No more bed time discussions and no more catching up at the end of the day.

We were about to become empty nesters and that was at the same time frightening and liberating.

I want to share my journey sending my son off to college, hoping the experience will help you with letting go, as a college student mom, as much as it helped me.

Let me start by saying that I admit to sheltering my son in Christian Schools for a large majority of his life. But the experience was far from what we expected. We expected him to avoid the pitfalls of bullying and cliques in the public school.

I’ve also spent my life looking for opportunities that matched his interest and the best way to support his goals and dreams, but that didn’t work either.

In his senior year, I came to the realization that it was time to let him go and let him do life on his own terms. This also meant, to stop protecting him and let him fail.

That has always been in the back of my mind, every time I helped, researched or emailed a teacher. The goal was to be there and not let him fail.

But in doing that, my goal backfired and gave him the perspective that he couldn’t do anything on his own.

It also taught him that all he did, was never enough. So the college experience away from us, from me, was his first real opportunity to do life on his own. And I can assure you, he was excited about that.

Letting Go: Move-In Day

College Move-in day arrived, we packed our car and his car and drove him to Liberty University in Virginia.

We arrived there early and move-in started. Liberty Students helped us haul away his belongings.

You can read about our move-in story HERE, you can also find move-in tips HERE.

He refused to get much help and wanted to do things on his own.

He didn’t say good bye after dinner, because we agreed to do breakfast next day.

Next day, we were to have breakfast together and drive home and he didn’t wake up.

I was heartbroken that he didn’t even care about saying good bye, he was happy to have a new found freedom.

The drive back and seeing the mountains of Virginia, which seemed to be endless, was the worst experience of my life.

I had mixed feelings. Anger for him not waking up to say good bye and sadness for leaving him there. And there was a fear of what was yet to come.

But I had to let go.

I had no option, but letting go.

Letting Go: Empty Nesters

You would be proud of me! Even though we had access to his school profile, we didn’t check, we didn’t give our opinion, help, nothing.

I gave away his computer desk, some of the belongings he said he didn’t need/want and changed his space.

That was the final let go moment.

I learned to focus on my own to-dos, on my business, and on my tasks.

My time, life and daily chores were just mine.

Letting go meant, reclaiming my own time and freedom and there’s so much power in reclaiming your own freedom.

My story of letting go did not have such a happy ending, 5 months later, my son announced the university wasn’t what he expected it to be and that he wanted to come home.

We accepted his decision, but for me, it was a new chapter.

Letting Go: The Next Chapter

I decided then, to continue to let him go and do life, look for a job, go back to school or not, find his way to find himself.

He never admitted that he took my help all those years for granted. But I realized what I did all those years did not really help him. It crippled him to need me/us to function in school and in life.

His mental health issues didn’t help, but I didn’t take it lightly the fact that his failure was in part, my failure and my fault.

I stalked the Liberty parents group for months, in vain hoping for some miracle and that he was going back to that amazing school and opportunity.

Facing failure was not something I was used to doing. Especially academically, since I was always first – valedictorian in high school and college.

Facing the fact that my son was not me was another step of letting go and managing my expectations of the future.

We both had a chance to start all over again.

Letting go became a way of life for me. A powerful way to give my son the freedom to live his own life.

I let go:

When I stopped paying for his bills

With no more micromanaging his schedule

By accepting the fact that he was going to do manual labor, while he was figuring out what he wanted to do

Refusing to give in to the urge of throwing in his face that he failed and I had nothing to do with it

Also by refraining from asking him to go back to school and informing him we would no longer pay/take a loan for any school attempts

Sometimes I go back to micromanaging some areas of his life. But for the most part, he has been able to find a job, go back to school, work on his bad spending habit (with his own money) and live like an adult, figuring out life on his own terms.

Letting go was one of the smartest decisions I’ve made as a mother. And I hope my story inspires you to do the same and be happy for your son/daughter about to go to college. Even if they are in the planning stages.

I hope and my wish is that my story about the The Power Of Letting Go inspires you to see there’s beauty in empowering our kids to grow, be themselves and live their lives to their fullest potential and accepting the failures along the way.

Our journey hasn’t been easy. But I’m determined to work and do my best to be the best parent I can ever be.

I let go and never looked back, but I’m still learning to let go, one day at a time.

How do you feel about your teen going to college?

Are you ready to let go?

Not ready? Save for later:

Can’t wait to hear what you think of the power of letting go!

As usual, give us a Trendy Shout!