On the Road Again...

My daughter and I will be hitting the road again as of tomorrow -- on the never-ending quest for the perfect college. I thought this was going to be a fun process, but I quickly learned last year with my son that 17-year olds are not even close to ready for this adventure into their futures. When we took Adam to look at colleges, it was an exercise in mind reading, trying to figure out what his impressions were. "Well," I thought, "he's a boy. They don't communicate." I figured Arlyn would be so much easier.

How wrong I was. On our first trip, which was down to the University of Florida and Florida State, Arlyn was, to put it bluntly, bitchy as hell. Not much gratitude to the mother who spent a small fortune for this little three day foray, I thought. On our third and last day there, Arlyn turned to me and said, "I'm not ready to go to college." AHA! Light bulb! Eureka moment! This is what the bitchiness has been all about. It's so much easier for her, like Adam, to hide in denial than to face these monumental decisions. I'm pushing my kids out of the nest. And a comfy nest it's been. No wonder...