Flying

Lu flies. It goes. At the beginning of October, still before reaching the age of majority, he will undertake a new project. New studies, other friends, a big city and a new normal that changes day by day.

I've been preparing for this since he was born. I have always insisted on letting her be, on giving her air, on respecting all her decisions and simply being there, supporting her without conditions. But now that the time has come, that I only have a few days left of having her fluttering around me, now, I feel like I'm dying. I catch myself reviewing our life. When she was born, when I took her home in my arms and introduced her to her new home, when she started to walk or when she hugged me on the beach, as a baby, when we got into the water. He did it with such strength, clinging to me as if I were his safest and strongest hold, with such confidence, that I treasure those moments like gold, as something unique that will never be repeated. Because, for me, hugs are so important, who will hug me like that again? Although I am lucky because I have had it, I have felt it and I am still moved by the memory of it.

Now it's released. He will look for other hugs and another handhold. She will fly to find herself, to be herself, to discover a lot of things and to face everything that comes her way, the good and the bad.

Empty nest syndrome, they call it. Mothers stop feeling needed and children face their fears. Lu is scared. Just like I was 28 years ago, my goodness, 28 already?, when I went to study Journalism in Bilbao. That big city, then cold and gray, that welcomed me on a dark and rainy day. My parents left me there, in a dormitory like the one that will now house Lucía, alone. But the survival instinct pulls you and you know that all the kids who are in that school are in the same situation as you. And you begin to chart a new path. "Hello what is your name? I am…” That's how simple it is to start an adventure.

However, how would my parents feel that day? Now I know. Believe. Maybe it's not the same, dad and mom had two other children at home and they were together, they had each other. I have been living alone with Lu, who is an only child, since her father and I divorced, when she was 5 years old. This fact, precisely, made me pay special attention to avoiding emotional dependence on my little girl. I didn't want to burden her with my loneliness, my sorrow or my fears. I tried to have an active and independent life and instilled the same values in her. I think I achieved it. Positive, happy, restless, active, responsible, independent, mature, hard-working, persevering... Lu is a gift. I have been so happy with him. But I admit that sometimes I look at her and see her so old that I wish I could go back in time and hold her in my arms for the last time. Rock her and hold her against me. Now I do it too but he pushes me away and says “oh, mom, leave me, you're so annoying” or he lets me do it but with a “what a plan” face.

This summer I have spent many afternoons fighting with the electronic documentation necessary to complete the application for a scholarship and places at the residence hall and at the University. And I have done it from the store, where I spend so many hours. Between the anger over all the requested requirements and the sadness over Lu's departure, I have vented to you many times. And I almost always encountered similar experiences. “Ugh, I still remember when Patri left. I didn't stop crying for a week. Then you get used to it but you miss them so much.” The same pain, the same anguish, the same feeling that life does not run but flies and that your daughter's childhood and adolescence has gone away like this, in a trice. And I catch myself saying that motherly phrase when a young girl enters the store with her baby: “Enjoy it, when you realize it's 18 years old.” Ha ha ha. How dramatic we women are. I have a good friend who, faced with my anguish, blurted out to me: “But why are you sad? That your daughter is leaving is good news. He will live his life, which is what he has to do. That's always good." I almost killed him! I even responded angrily: “What sensitivity! If I know, I won't tell you." But what bothers me the most is that he is right.

When I was at the University, a roommate, Menchu, who was Galician and was only in Bilbao the first year, gave me a copy of The Lyrical Offering, by Rabindranath Tagore. In one of his passages, the Indian poet said:

“…Those who love me in this world try to protect me by all means. But that does not happen with your love, which is greater than his, and that is why you leave me free. For fear that I will forget them, they never dare to leave me alone. But the days go by, and you don't show yourself to me..."

I remember that I copied that passage and sent it from high school (we corresponded a lot back then) on the back of a photograph of me to my parents. With this, I wanted to tell them that I understood everything they loved me, precisely for giving me that freedom and letting me follow my path, and that I thanked them from the bottom of my heart.

Now I find myself in the same situation and Tagore's text comes to mind many times.

I have also seen a beautiful movie with Lu again, which I highly recommend, titled The Bélier Family. It is French and tells the story of a family in which everyone is deaf and mute except the eldest daughter. She decides to leave the family farm, where she is very involved in helping her parents, to go to Paris to study singing. This decision, the strength it must have for detachment and the transformation of the parents' attitude, first of denial (and emotional blackmail) and then of acceptance and support, centers the plot with great touches of humor and a spectacular soundtrack. The song that closes the film, and performed by the protagonist, Louane, “Je vole” (I fly), makes your skin crawl. I, who am sensitive and easy to tear, cry excitedly. "Ow mom! "It's a movie," Lu scolds me. Now I feel exactly the same as the parents in the movie.

A month ago, Lu returned from spending ten days in a village in Portugal with her best friend and her parents. On the way, he sent me a WhatsApp:

-“Shall I make dinner? What do you prefer?"-

And he sent me three or four suggestions to choose from. Opt for a sweet and sour mango salad. I hadn't stopped at the store that day, and since Vane and Mom were on vacation, I was feeling really tired. When I got home, she sent me to the living room to rest and she took care of everything.

The salad was to die for. “I came all the way looking at recipes on Instagram. “It's what I'm going to miss the most when I'm in high school, mom: cooking,” she confessed. And he took his recipe notebook (which I gave him after confinement) and added the new salad to incorporate it into our daily menus. We always do the same thing when we make a new dish. We do it, we try it and, if we like it, we put it in the notebook.

How can I not miss these moments? Cooking together, chatting, half-watching a series, going for a run (well, we leave the house together but she's more than 100 meters ahead of me), jumping into her bed to wake her up on the weekends, cleaning the house at leisure, go shopping, share days at the beach with her and her best friends (their conversations are never wasted), dance around the house (I do it outside too, but she's ashamed of me)... Yes, it seems that our coexistence is a honeymoon. honey, but that's how it is. After some difficult years due to precocious adolescence, we now understand each other very well, we respect our spaces and live together in harmony.

Cuando la deje en Madrid, a la puerta de su colegio mayor, se me quebrará el alma. Por culpa del covid-19, no podré cruzar el umbral con ella, no podré ver su habitación ni conoceré el lugar donde vivirá durante este curso. No podré ayudarla con las maletas ni presentarme al director del centro. Será todo frío, aséptico, distante. La veré alejarse por la puerta y ¡Dios!, solo de pensarlo me saltan la lágrimas. Tendré que llevar dos kilos de pañuelos de papel. ¿Cómo se adaptará a la nueva situación? ¿A esta vida universitaria que la pandemia ha despojado de todo romanticismo? Y más en Madrid, epicentro del bicho. Solo podrá reunirse con seis amigos, las clases serán telemáticas y tendrá que comer sola en una mesa del comedor del colegio aislada por mamparas de plástico. No tendrá compañera de habitación ni baile, con lo que a ella le gusta bailar. Está asustada y desencantada. «Vaya puto año, mamá», me dice. Y perdón por la expresión pero es así, de feo, de rotundo. Aún así, estoy segura que será feliz, que disfrutará cada momento, que se adaptará a la situación porque si en algo es experta Lu es en adaptarse a todo y salir airosa. Y comenzará esa nueva vida que la hará aún mejor de lo que ya es. Yo volveré a mi tienda de la esquina de la calle Magdalena y los primeros días lloraré con vosotras, como siempre hago. Vendrá Ana, que acaba de despedir a su hija Bea, que se ha ido a Barcelona a trabajar y a vivir con su novio, y nos consolaremos mutuamente. Para entonces, ella ya tendrá callo. Aunque le dije que iba a escribir sobre esto y me soltó:

-“Well, don't expect me to read to you, bitch, you're sure to make me cry.”

Oh! This is life. With comings, with comings, with farewells, with meetings and with many concessions for pure love. Fly Lu! I wish you the best and you know, all the sons and daughters who leave know it, we will always be here.