Skip to main content

College Life



This coming Monday will be two months since Lauren left for college. I have had more than one person ask me how I'm doing with her being gone. I guess if I could sum up the feeling in one word, it would be, "different." The college Lauren is attending is 90 miles away. Yesterday, since my schedule was clear and Lauren has no Friday classes, I decided to hop into the car and drive over to visit her while Dominic was at school. I had a Panera gift card, and knowing how much Lauren loves their macaroni and cheese, I invited her to lunch. It was awesome to have my girl completely to myself for a few hours. After lunch, I drove her back to her dorm and dropped her off. On my drive back home, I caught myself smiling because I know that Lauren is happy.  Isn't that kind of the way it goes with your children (even if they are adults)? If they are happy, then you are happy, right? My first semester as a college freshman was much different.  In the Fall of 1981, I went away to school in Kentucky. I had really bad homesickness, fell into the "wrong" crowd and was briefly engaged. I lasted one semester and then moved back home with my parents. I really can't remember what possessed me to pick a college so far away, knowing how close I was (and still am) to my family. A few weeks ago, I hooked up with a friend of mine who also has a daughter that is a college freshman. My friend was telling me that her daughter's first roommate moved out of the dorm and dropped out of college completely within a few days because she was so "homesick." Wow, I guess that young lady was definitely not ready to be on her own!! Starting on that road to "college life" can be hard, especially if you tend to be more introverted or shy. You really have to push yourself out of your normal "comfort zone." I sometimes wonder, what if I would have stuck it out at Eastern Kentucky? Where would I be and what would I be doing now in 2014? I guess life has a way of going the way it was meant to be.  My college "career" involved mostly going to school at night and working at the same time. It took me another 13 years before I finally finished! Believe me, I have highly encouraged my one and only daughter to not take the same "path" I did!!!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Those "Steps" to Independence Can Be Hard

We are heading towards 600 orders for Dominic's business. Since our long-term goal for Baked Goods By Dominic is having a "brick-and-mortar" and hire those with disabilities, it is essential and imperative that I continue to teach him all parts of the business. Since I prompted Dominic for so many years for speech, he has become "prompt dependent." What that essentially means is that he will look at me for a prompt, like, "what do you do next?" I do that one a lot. Dominic has been going to a private speech therapist for over ten years and she reminds me often that Dominic usually will know the answer, if I am patient and wait for him. That has been a very hard habit to break! Dominic has an incredible memory, so I put it to the test this morning. I didn't write out the steps, I wanted to see how much he could do completely on his own. We have a customer picking up his order today, but the only thing that had been done is putting the cookies into t...
1 comment
Read more

Why We Pursued Guardianship of our Son with Autism

Last Thursday morning, my husband, Dominic and I went to our county's Probate Court and had Dominic's Guardianship Hearing. My husband and I are Co-Guardians, and we were granted "Partial Guardianship," which means Dominic can make some of his own decisions (future educational and vocational placement options, what to wear and how he wants to spend his free time), but my husband and I will make his medical, health care, legal, contractual and major financial decisions. The subject of Guardianship in the disability "world" has been and continues to be a controversial and divisive topic.  I was a panelist for an Autism Conference this past summer and presented on what it's like to have a child with Autism. Towards the end of my presentation, I mentioned that Dominic had just turned 18 and that we were going through the Guardianship process. When the attendees could ask questions, the first person that went up to the microphone started telling me that I was...
Post a Comment
Read more

Presume Competence

Since we have traveled outside of the United States since Dominic was very small, we have had to get him a Children's Passport every five years. Since his current one expires in February of 2024 and he is now 19, we had to apply for an Adult Passport. I don't know why my husband and I picked Dominic's first day of school and Michigan State University moving in their students, but the appointment was yesterady at 3 p.m. We had gathered all of the documents needed and then went into a special room in the East Lansing Post Office just for Passports. The three of us sat down and the clerk asked Dominic his age. He said, "19." Since we were also getting his picture taken for the Passport, he went into a separate room, where she took a picture of him and then let him look at it to make sure he liked it (it will be his picture for the next 10 years)!  He said he did, so he sat back down with us. The clerk filled out a bit more of the paperwork and then she let Dominic s...
Post a Comment
Read more