I’m beginning to think that I am an anomaly.  I’ve been in quarantine, social distancing for almost 7 weeks with only minor excursions out of my neighborhood. One excursion was to pack up our daughter’s freshman college dorm room after the abrupt end to the school year.  Despite everything, I have managed to stay positive, most of the time.

The first two months of 2020 were busier than normal for us.  Which given how crazy we normally are…says a whole lot!  On New Year’s Day, my mother-in-law fell and broke her hip.  She lives alone in a house with steps in Florida.  In the middle of February, she had a heart attack and was thankfully found by her nephew who had come from New Jersey to spend the weekend with her. In both instances, my husband took off and flew down to Florida to help her.  His first trip to Florida was necessarily short and required an amazing precision in scheduling and keeping our fingers crossed as he landed and collected his luggage with enough time to meet me and my car in the departure lane at the airport to grab a quick kiss and hop in the car as I headed inside with Rylee (16) to catch a plane for the weekend Orlando, Florida for a field hockey college showcase.  Two weeks later, I was headed back to Orlando with Callie (12) for another field hockey tournament.  Between other indoor hockey tournaments as well as a three-day weekend of coach training, I spent a total of 3 weekends sleeping in my bed in January and February.  By the time March rolled around I was tired.  But gymnastics tournaments, spring break, and other activities promised that, while things may not have been as hectic, they were going to still be busy.  

So when my firm decided to begin mandatory teleworking and social distancing was put in place in our state, I wasn’t too heartbroken.  Keeping my family safe and healthy has been, is, and always will be, a top priority for me.  But the idea of getting to sleep in a bit longer, not running around to various activities, eating dinner as a family and family time in general?  Those things sounded like heaven to me!  On top of that,  I have taken this time to get things done on my coaching business so that I can hopefully jump in when I am ready to go (there’s always more to be done, of course).  Not much to complain about there!

Except for one major thing:  Haylie.  My oldest girl is a freshman in college (or as I joke now, a freshman in our basement).  This kid is amazing.  She has always known who she is and what she wants.  She has never been one to give into peer pressure. She cares about others more than she cares about herself (something I know a bit about and am trying to get her to see is not always a good thing).  She loves her sisters.  She loves her parents.

BUT SHE WAS MORE THAN READY TO GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE AND BE ON HER OWN. 

In fact, I’d argue that she needed to.  Now, that is a hard thing for a mom to say.  Really hard.  But it is true.  She needed to figure out how to live on her own.  I don’t think that her father and I were helicopter parents but we have always been involved in our kids’ lives and Haylie is no different. 

But with her, her ADHD and other chronic health issues, including chronic pain, were things that we worried about so much.  Was going to be able to succeed or do things?  We continued to wake her up for school even as a senior in high school.  We continued to stay on top of her about work and other things out of fear that it wouldn’t get done otherwise.  

In hindsight, we realized that we should have let her fail.  We should have not woken her up and let her figure out how to get to school.  We shouldn’t have waited as we pulled out of the driveway and she was yelling “one sec” making her sisters late to school practically every morning.  In fact, in hindsight, Haylie agrees that we should have let her fail more than we did. 

We know that now.  But as I’m sure many parents will agree, letting your child fail is BEYOND hard.  Even when you know it is for the best. 

Anyway, I digress.

When Haylie set off for college on Long Island, New York, I was extremely excited for her but also extremely nervous.  How would she get up for class?  (She’ll figure it out…and most mornings she did.)  Will she remember to take her medications?  (She’d remember or suffer the consequences.)  Will she make nice friends? (Yes.)  Would she make it to class?  (It appears that she mostly did.)  What happens if she gets sick?  (She’ll handle it…and with several calls to me, she did.)  Plus all of the other questions a mom worries about when dropping her daughter off at college for the first time.

First semester was interesting.  She made it to class on time.  She got dressed and looked adorable in most of the pictures she posted on social media.  She made friends.  And we talked.  So much.  Probably more than we did when she was home.  It was great!  I loved being able to connect with her as her mother but also as more than that. I loved hearing what she was doing, the friends she was meeting, and what she was learning.

And then she got sick halfway through the first semester.  She had a bad cough and cold.  Maybe a low fever.  She figured it out but it knocked some of the drive out of her and took a long time for her to feel better.  As she was beginning to recover, she ended up having an issue where she couldn’t stop vomiting and almost passing out (not alcohol related). It was a Sunday evening.  I remember getting the call from her from the dorm bathroom.  I could barely understand her.  And then she started vomiting.  We hung up because being on the phone wasn’t a priority at that second.  When I couldn’t reach her again, I called her best friend.  Fortunately, we’d exchanged numbers when we visited over Parents’ Weekend.  She lived on her floor and was already with Haylie in the bathroom when I reached her.  Because it was late on a Sunday, the health center was closed so the girls had to contact Public Safety.  Not knowing what to do, Public Safety called 911.  The whole time, I am being texted or called with updates. 

I’ve been through some tough things, but this was really hard.  Not having a clue what was going on while my baby was in the hospital was hard.  It took all I could to not get in the car to get to her.  My husband and my parents talked me off the ledge.  I KNEW she had to figure it out.  At this point, her roommate was with her and I knew that she’d keep me informed.

And you know what?  They did.  Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing overly serious…(nothing would have prevented me from getting to my girl then!).  And when the doctor came in at 2am or whatever time it was, Haylie knew to call me so that I could hear the diagnosis.  She did this on her own.  I was proud of my girl for navigating something so scary on her own (and with the support of her friends).  She knew I’d be there for her in a heartbeat (or as long as the drive would take for me to get to her) if she needed me.

Unfortunately, though, those weeks of feeling poorly clouded her freshman year experience.  She was tired and didn’t leave her room as much as she could have.

When she came home for winter break, we spent time talking to her about our expectations, what she wanted, and how she could take advantage of all the University had to offer.  Yes, we even had her sign a contract of expectations.  The only one she balked at was that she had to attend a sporting event.  (You see, she is a theater major.  A drama queen?  And doesn’t “do sport.”)  

Second semester, Haylie was starting to figure it out.  She was getting to class, making plans with friends, and enjoying college life and being on her own.  We were happy with how she was doing.  She missed us and was excited to see us over Spring Break.  She was thriving.

And then the email came on Sunday, March 8th.  Haylie and I had actually spent over an hour on the phone just talking. She was talking about her classes, things she was excited about at school, and even coming home the following week for Spring Break and what we were going to do!  

Less than 10 minutes after we hung up, she texted a screenshot of an email from her University that changed everything for her.  Someone at the University had come into the health center complaining of COVID-19 symptoms and was being tested.  As a result, the University was cancelling all in-person classes for that week and school would resume after Spring Break.  Her school was one of the first in the country to cancel classes. 

At the time we understood and were grateful the school was taking the steps it was.  That was Sunday.  The outbreak was just beginning in the State of New York.  We managed to get her home on Wednesday and told her to bring all of her books home…just in case…

The first two weeks of having Haylie home was great, she missed her friends but was glad to be spending time with her sisters, and, yes, even her parents.  Within a few days of her being home, our offices would encourage (and then require) teleworking.  Rylee and Callie were on Spring Break.  Family time was great. 

Then midway through Spring Break, the University decided to go to online classes for the rest of the school year.  We were given a very short turn around to get up to Long Island and pack up her stuff.  By this time, New York’s “shelter in place” order was set to go into effect in two days.  Most things were already closed.  The University provided gloves and only permitted the student and one parent to go into the building at a time.  Haylie and I went in initially.  There was no fanfare.  Her roommate was already cleared out.  There was no saying goodbye to friends.  There were no end of school tears.

On my end,  I felt claustrophobic.  I wanted to get in and out as fast as I could.  I started shoving her clothes into trash bags while Haylie was tasked with taking care of the little things. I packed up the towels and dishes and made traction while she stood there a bit bewildered.  

I didn’t want to be there anymore than she did.  That was actually the day we were supposed to be dropping her back at school after spending a few days in New York City as a family.  It was supposed to be the day her sisters, who had never had an opportunity to see her school, would get to visit.  She had previously talked about being excited to show them around.

Instead, we took less than two hours to take down and pack up everything that had taken hours to put together only 6 and a half months earlier.  It was sad.  It was depressing.  It was nothing like packing up from freshman year of college should have been.

And worse, Haylie sat in the back of the car trying to comprehend how everything transpired.  Of course she intellectually understood why her school and almost all of the other colleges and universities in the country had closed.  She understood that social distancing and quarantining was necessary.  She never once said it wasn’t fair.  She never once complained, not really.

But she got quiet.  She worried about the effect her ADHD was going to have on her paying attention to online classes.  She worried about how her acting and set production classes were going to translate to online learning.  Her worries were all to be expected.

She was also really worried about the effect moving back home would have on all the progress she had made, even after her rocky first semester.  To be honest, I was too.  I was also anxious to see how the dynamic, which had changed in her absence, would once again change upon her return. 

And it did.  Of course it did.

We are now in week 7 of quarantine.  Some of the habits she had in high school have returned.  She knows it and we know it.  But she gets up and “goes” to class.  There are days she may not come out of her “cave” as she calls it until almost dinner time.  (Her room is in the basement.)  

Despite what Haylie thinks, her father and I do understand how difficult it is to return home, especially under these circumstances.  We would never have wished this on her or any of the other students who are missing out on so much (including our other two girls).

And who knows what will happen to her summer plans, as she is scheduled to be a drama counselor for part of the summer at a sleepover camp in New York.

Knowing my girl, she’ll figure it out and make the best of it…but as she said…she’s among the group of “people who finally got to be adults and then were violently torpedoed back into childhood”.

That girl…she sure has a way with words…