Morning, friends! ☀️ As I write this to you, it’s thundering and raining hard here where I live in Atlanta, which reminds me of those scenes with big storms in the movies, which always seem to signal a transition in a character’s journey, from one phase of their life to another, right?
If you missed Wednesday’s newsletter, I mentioned that we’re taking my daughter to college today, which is obviously one of those huge life transitions after which we begin to become different people — our world expands, the circle of people we come in contact with grows, and all new kinds of ideas and experiences come into our lives.
But, it’s so hard too — because, to make that transition, you have to leave the world you’ve known behind, the one you’ve been a part of since you were born, the one that made you who you are.
If you look back on big transitions you’ve made in your life, what advice would you give to someone going through something like my daughter is going through today? What do you remember, and what did you learn — about making a big transition, about yourself, whatever that was for you? — Terrell
Our “girls” are in their 40s now but we remember like it was yesterday when each was “Dropped off at school”. The quiet in the house was deafening! Stay close but don’t cling … before you know it, graduation will be here
My most recent transition was when one of my three daughters had her own daughter three years ago and another girl almost two years ago. I honestly had no idea how my life would change. How those two little grandchildren would become my world. 😊
Sending a big, warm hug to you and your daughter! <3 I still distinctly remember the day my mum dropped me off to college five years ago. It was all kinds of scary, exciting and everything in between!
My mantra through any Big Transition (or smaller, more insignificant ones too) is this quote by Rilke:
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. / No feeling is final."
Every transition has its peaks and valleys, painful and delightful moments. I still have to keep reminding myself that every feeling, no matter how overwhelming it feels, is just one tiny, tiny fragment of a whole experience. Every feeling is transient.
During the moments when I feel isolated, I also come back to this quote by Maya Angelou: "I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me."
It's always comforting to know that separateness is an illusion - many others have felt this way before me and many others are experiencing these emotions too.
When I first dropped my daughter off for college, I stayed in a nearby bhotel for a week, in case she needed me. I left her to take care of everything, but if she needed something I'd be there. 2 things, When she went to sign up for her student parking, she didn't know her license plate number, so I found her car, took a picture, sent it to her. Crisis averted. Then she came down with a very bad cold a few days later so she came to my hotel room to sleep, I closed the curtains and left her alone to rest. She has become a very independent young woman who knows that if she needs something mom will be there, but I think Knowing that gives her the confidence to take care of everything on her own.
I think transitions can be daunting and exciting at any age/stage of life. I've been through a few in the past couple years, for my daughter (24), and for my mother(88), and for myself (fine, 58). I think the important thing has been accepting them as transitions, and knowing that your past experiences have brought you here and prepared you for this. This is a beautiful day, I've never seen this one before.
We watched birds on our back porch raise a nest of little ones this July. On the day that everybody flew out, one of the parents would sit in the empty nest, fending off the little ones who wanted to return. They knew what was best for them. You can't sit in the nest waiting for us to bring you bugs all your life. The other parent would fly off one by one with the fledgelings, presumably teaching them to catch insects. Soon they all were gone. Sometimes they would come back and land near the nest for a while, but the "launch" was complete and successful. Nature is an example.
Great question. I find myself in the same position. We drop our daughter off in a few days. I think some kids tend to worry too much about what everyone else thinks of them...especially in the age of social media. I've always liked the following quote. (I can't remember the origin.) Some people would do well to fast forward their mindset to age 60.
“When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks.
When you’re 40, you stop caring what everyone thinks.
When you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.”
Aug 11, 2023·edited Aug 11, 2023Liked by Terrell Johnson
I have moved many, many times, and have three degrees from three different schools so I have very strong opinions on the best advice for a girl going off to college. It's been true of every transition I've made, but especially this one.
I would say it takes some time time to find your people. Look for activities and classes and extracurriculars that that you find interesting or personally meaningful and be open to meeting people. But always remember you don't owe anyone your friendship or companionship. (Not your roommates, or a lab partner, or definitely some boy who keeps texting!) It's okay if it takes time. Some people find their best friend two hours into orientation, but it's okay if that isn't you.
I was a French/pre-med major. My first six weeks of college were brutal, I just didn't seem to click with my roommates or other people in my majors. But I took a class in comparative religion because the topic really interested me. And I met two of my best friends at a day-long Ramadan solidarity fast. (I'm not Muslim, the other two girls grew up Catholic like I did, and we were in three wildly different majors: French, mathematics, and anthropology. We just immediately hit it off.) I few weeks later I met another one of my best friends when we both individually decided to flee an out of control Halloween party (intent on leaving before the cops broke the party up) and realized we were both early birds who liked to eat breakfast at 7:00 AM. Embrace your interests, live in accordance with your values, and good friendships will follow.
Same story here -- dropping off oldest to college next week. There will be an adjustment, and likely harder for us and his younger brother than him. But this is life, and the change is for the better and there is just so much to look forward to for these young adults. fully associate with Steph’s advice.
I’m not a parent, but I’ve recently gone through lots of stressful life transitions—and the only reason I got through them was because of community, caring friendships, and interdependence.
This is an exciting but scary transition for your daughter (and you!!), but fortunately, going to college is the one time when almost everyone else is in the same boat: of not knowing anyone else, and being super nervous and homesick. That fosters an openness to new connections that I’ve never experienced at any other time besides the first week of my freshman year.
Which is all to say: if your daughter focuses on being open to these new connections, she’s going to do great! Good luck to her in her first week of college. 🤗
My youngest is going to college on Monday, and I have the same worries for her. My advice to her is simply: Be yourself. Trust yourself. Everything else will work out.
I moved to Hong Kong and lived there for 10 years without ever having set foot in Asia. I wasn't even 100% sure I could find it on a map when I hopped on the plane.
So my advice is to not plan very much. Obviously there will be requirements, mostly bureaucratic paperwork, but in terms of expectations, throw them all out the window. In college it can be very easy to set a huge standard for expectations, which can sabotage finding the correct path.
During my first months in Hong Kong, my first friends were not Chinese but rather Nepalese, which a couple of years later led me to spend a month in the country (and experience TWO forced holidays because the communist party took over the cities). A few of my other classmates were more regimented, and while that certainly worked for them, they often missed opportunities because they weren't part of the plan.
I never would have planned my Nepal sojourn (and various other side adventures) and if I hadn't been open to whatever opportunities presented themselves I would have missed out on some of the best moments of my life.
I used my impending 50th birthday as a driving force to get myself in better shape, and my motivation was signing up to do a runDisney half marathon. I was NOT going to waste all that registration cost, so I trained for 9 months, and I was able to get it done.
My lesson from that, for myself, is that I need to set concrete goals to work toward.
(And I’m also in the Atlanta area, so the storms kept me from my morning run today!!)
My undergraduate education was done in my native state in two cities my family was quite familiar with. One, we lived there when I was younger.
I saw the differences in going back.
Our house was moved back off a hill.
I saw the tennis courts and football practice fields I looked at curiously as a kid.
The house with neighbors we had a great relationship with was still standing as I thought about those much simpler days of going to the college’s auditorium to learn about foreign countries.
I lived in a non-air conditioned dorm across from where I attended sixth grade and dealt with merciless teasing.
When I transferred to a larger state university in a larger city, I saw more people from that time and they seemed much more friendly.
Back to that first school and city my lived in when I was a kid, I transferred after only one semester and was glad to do it.
Like the time I was younger, I still did not like the place.
Running metaphors/advice:
-- I can go back somewhere and discover I have the same opinion, even after years of becoming more of my own person.
-- It’s fine to DNF when you have given your best, reached and even exceeded your limits and it’s still not enough. Sleep well knowing you gave your all.
-- I prefer road running over a lot of trail running.
Don’t get so focused on the distant future (a 5- or 10-year goal, for example) that you miss out on the present. Also, the reverse :) There’s a balance where you are both mindful of your future goals but also enjoying friends, awesome moments, and the things that will become your best life memories.
I will never, ever forget the image of my mother, standing in her nightgown and sobbing as the car pulled out of the driveway to spirit me away to UMASS....and that was more years ago than I'd care to admit. I wish we'd had the tools then to understand that while yes, we were saying goodbye to something precious, we were about to step into a better and more rich relationship. One that in many ways was more precious than the one we were leaving behind. So I think it's about creating a vision of what this "better future" might look like--and allowing yourselves to look forward to that...And perhaps it's also about making the space to grieve what is lost...
To use a running metaphor, you just have to keep moving forward.
Life is full of changes and the ones our children go through can be the most challenging ones to watch and be part of.
But children growing up and becoming independent is the natural order of life. It's been going on for eons and some parents never get to experience the growth and independence of their children.
So while it is painful to watch them go off and start their lives separate from you, it will be exciting to see the adults they will become.
Our “girls” are in their 40s now but we remember like it was yesterday when each was “Dropped off at school”. The quiet in the house was deafening! Stay close but don’t cling … before you know it, graduation will be here
My most recent transition was when one of my three daughters had her own daughter three years ago and another girl almost two years ago. I honestly had no idea how my life would change. How those two little grandchildren would become my world. 😊
Sending a big, warm hug to you and your daughter! <3 I still distinctly remember the day my mum dropped me off to college five years ago. It was all kinds of scary, exciting and everything in between!
My mantra through any Big Transition (or smaller, more insignificant ones too) is this quote by Rilke:
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. / No feeling is final."
Every transition has its peaks and valleys, painful and delightful moments. I still have to keep reminding myself that every feeling, no matter how overwhelming it feels, is just one tiny, tiny fragment of a whole experience. Every feeling is transient.
During the moments when I feel isolated, I also come back to this quote by Maya Angelou: "I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me."
It's always comforting to know that separateness is an illusion - many others have felt this way before me and many others are experiencing these emotions too.
When I first dropped my daughter off for college, I stayed in a nearby bhotel for a week, in case she needed me. I left her to take care of everything, but if she needed something I'd be there. 2 things, When she went to sign up for her student parking, she didn't know her license plate number, so I found her car, took a picture, sent it to her. Crisis averted. Then she came down with a very bad cold a few days later so she came to my hotel room to sleep, I closed the curtains and left her alone to rest. She has become a very independent young woman who knows that if she needs something mom will be there, but I think Knowing that gives her the confidence to take care of everything on her own.
I think transitions can be daunting and exciting at any age/stage of life. I've been through a few in the past couple years, for my daughter (24), and for my mother(88), and for myself (fine, 58). I think the important thing has been accepting them as transitions, and knowing that your past experiences have brought you here and prepared you for this. This is a beautiful day, I've never seen this one before.
See you in Richmond!
Have a plan A, B, C, D, E, F, etc. Be flexible. Life never turns out the way we have planned. It usually turns out even better!
We watched birds on our back porch raise a nest of little ones this July. On the day that everybody flew out, one of the parents would sit in the empty nest, fending off the little ones who wanted to return. They knew what was best for them. You can't sit in the nest waiting for us to bring you bugs all your life. The other parent would fly off one by one with the fledgelings, presumably teaching them to catch insects. Soon they all were gone. Sometimes they would come back and land near the nest for a while, but the "launch" was complete and successful. Nature is an example.
Great question. I find myself in the same position. We drop our daughter off in a few days. I think some kids tend to worry too much about what everyone else thinks of them...especially in the age of social media. I've always liked the following quote. (I can't remember the origin.) Some people would do well to fast forward their mindset to age 60.
“When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks.
When you’re 40, you stop caring what everyone thinks.
When you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.”
I have moved many, many times, and have three degrees from three different schools so I have very strong opinions on the best advice for a girl going off to college. It's been true of every transition I've made, but especially this one.
I would say it takes some time time to find your people. Look for activities and classes and extracurriculars that that you find interesting or personally meaningful and be open to meeting people. But always remember you don't owe anyone your friendship or companionship. (Not your roommates, or a lab partner, or definitely some boy who keeps texting!) It's okay if it takes time. Some people find their best friend two hours into orientation, but it's okay if that isn't you.
I was a French/pre-med major. My first six weeks of college were brutal, I just didn't seem to click with my roommates or other people in my majors. But I took a class in comparative religion because the topic really interested me. And I met two of my best friends at a day-long Ramadan solidarity fast. (I'm not Muslim, the other two girls grew up Catholic like I did, and we were in three wildly different majors: French, mathematics, and anthropology. We just immediately hit it off.) I few weeks later I met another one of my best friends when we both individually decided to flee an out of control Halloween party (intent on leaving before the cops broke the party up) and realized we were both early birds who liked to eat breakfast at 7:00 AM. Embrace your interests, live in accordance with your values, and good friendships will follow.
Same story here -- dropping off oldest to college next week. There will be an adjustment, and likely harder for us and his younger brother than him. But this is life, and the change is for the better and there is just so much to look forward to for these young adults. fully associate with Steph’s advice.
In all life’s transitions, keep running.
I’m not a parent, but I’ve recently gone through lots of stressful life transitions—and the only reason I got through them was because of community, caring friendships, and interdependence.
This is an exciting but scary transition for your daughter (and you!!), but fortunately, going to college is the one time when almost everyone else is in the same boat: of not knowing anyone else, and being super nervous and homesick. That fosters an openness to new connections that I’ve never experienced at any other time besides the first week of my freshman year.
Which is all to say: if your daughter focuses on being open to these new connections, she’s going to do great! Good luck to her in her first week of college. 🤗
My youngest is going to college on Monday, and I have the same worries for her. My advice to her is simply: Be yourself. Trust yourself. Everything else will work out.
I moved to Hong Kong and lived there for 10 years without ever having set foot in Asia. I wasn't even 100% sure I could find it on a map when I hopped on the plane.
So my advice is to not plan very much. Obviously there will be requirements, mostly bureaucratic paperwork, but in terms of expectations, throw them all out the window. In college it can be very easy to set a huge standard for expectations, which can sabotage finding the correct path.
During my first months in Hong Kong, my first friends were not Chinese but rather Nepalese, which a couple of years later led me to spend a month in the country (and experience TWO forced holidays because the communist party took over the cities). A few of my other classmates were more regimented, and while that certainly worked for them, they often missed opportunities because they weren't part of the plan.
I never would have planned my Nepal sojourn (and various other side adventures) and if I hadn't been open to whatever opportunities presented themselves I would have missed out on some of the best moments of my life.
I used my impending 50th birthday as a driving force to get myself in better shape, and my motivation was signing up to do a runDisney half marathon. I was NOT going to waste all that registration cost, so I trained for 9 months, and I was able to get it done.
My lesson from that, for myself, is that I need to set concrete goals to work toward.
(And I’m also in the Atlanta area, so the storms kept me from my morning run today!!)
My undergraduate education was done in my native state in two cities my family was quite familiar with. One, we lived there when I was younger.
I saw the differences in going back.
Our house was moved back off a hill.
I saw the tennis courts and football practice fields I looked at curiously as a kid.
The house with neighbors we had a great relationship with was still standing as I thought about those much simpler days of going to the college’s auditorium to learn about foreign countries.
I lived in a non-air conditioned dorm across from where I attended sixth grade and dealt with merciless teasing.
When I transferred to a larger state university in a larger city, I saw more people from that time and they seemed much more friendly.
Back to that first school and city my lived in when I was a kid, I transferred after only one semester and was glad to do it.
Like the time I was younger, I still did not like the place.
Running metaphors/advice:
-- I can go back somewhere and discover I have the same opinion, even after years of becoming more of my own person.
-- It’s fine to DNF when you have given your best, reached and even exceeded your limits and it’s still not enough. Sleep well knowing you gave your all.
-- I prefer road running over a lot of trail running.
-- Trust your gut instinct.
-
Don’t get so focused on the distant future (a 5- or 10-year goal, for example) that you miss out on the present. Also, the reverse :) There’s a balance where you are both mindful of your future goals but also enjoying friends, awesome moments, and the things that will become your best life memories.
relentless forward progress this too shall pass
I will never, ever forget the image of my mother, standing in her nightgown and sobbing as the car pulled out of the driveway to spirit me away to UMASS....and that was more years ago than I'd care to admit. I wish we'd had the tools then to understand that while yes, we were saying goodbye to something precious, we were about to step into a better and more rich relationship. One that in many ways was more precious than the one we were leaving behind. So I think it's about creating a vision of what this "better future" might look like--and allowing yourselves to look forward to that...And perhaps it's also about making the space to grieve what is lost...
To use a running metaphor, you just have to keep moving forward.
Life is full of changes and the ones our children go through can be the most challenging ones to watch and be part of.
But children growing up and becoming independent is the natural order of life. It's been going on for eons and some parents never get to experience the growth and independence of their children.
So while it is painful to watch them go off and start their lives separate from you, it will be exciting to see the adults they will become.
Enjoy the moments and don't rush it.