Callum moves to college next week.

I’m doing just as poorly as I had expected I’d be at this point. I wander the house moaning, “Why is this happening to me?” I cry all the time. Playing a game with Matthew? Quietly weeping. Petting a dog? Weeping. Making dinner? Weeping.

“What’s wrong with it?” Callum asks one night when he comes in the kitchen and I’m sniffling while getting out some fruit for dinner. “It,” of course, being one of the lovely ways he likes to refer to me.

“Nothing,” I say.

“It’s lying,” he says.

His college sends all of these emails helping parents and caregivers prepare for college. They kept reminding us that it’s okay to feel all the things, it’s okay to cry, but please save our meltdowns for a time other than in front of our already anxious children, who just need to be convinced that they’ve got this. And he probably does. I, however, do not.

I have bought everything I can possibly think of for him to take to his dorm. I have prepared a first aid kit ready for any calamity I can think (putting the ol’ anxiety disorder to work there). Have a cold? A cut? A headache? A pregnancy scare? Someone on your floor maybe overdosing? I’ve got things for all that. I made laminated cards (as my friend Seth said the other day while I was telling him all this, “Of course they’re laminated”) with information on the local clinic, how to get quarantine meals from campus dining, who to reach out to if misses classes. Will he ever even look at those things? I don’t know. It’s mostly for me to feel better, like I’ve prepared him for every scenario, though of course I also understand that there is no being really prepared for all of life.

Matthew finally said this is all hitting him the other day. I was like, “WELCOME TO MY WORLD! I’VE BEEN HERE FOR MONTHS! IT’S AWFUL! HE WILL LEAVE AND WE WILL NEVER SEE HIM OR TALK TO HIM AGAIN.”

Matthew, ever calm, said, “That’s not true.”

“THAT was a test!” I said. “If you can still think rationally like that, you’re not sad enough yet!”

I miss Edward. My empathetic canine husband was always attentive to me when I cried. Charlie just continues to endlessly lick his paws and Spot gives me a what’s wrong with it? look.

It’s like this. Imagine you’ve had a job for 18 years. You’re not sure you’ve done a good job at that job, but it’s been yours. And okay, maybe you’ve sometimes hated that job. And the job is around the clock, 7 days a week, and is relatively unrewarding. But it’s your job. And then you’re just let go from that job. So now what?

Did you get that I mean the job is parenting? And look, don’t talk to me about how he will still need parenting or other garbage like that. Again, I am not looking for rational thoughts. I am looking to weep and feel sorry for myself. I’m getting pretty good at it.

I am excited for him. I am happy for him. I know we will all adjust and it will be okay. But I am sad. I don’t like change. I don’t like feeling out of control. It’s all amazing and it all sucks.

So I guess I’ll keep cleaning my house (my favorite anxiety activity) and stress-baking (college care packages set for about four months) and listening to sad songs. This is what is supposed to happen. Raise a kid, do your best, launch them into the world. Seems like a bad system, but here we are.

And now, back to weeping.