Mom Inventories College Necessities, Readies Empty Nest

Mom on the Run

I’m home, finally, after a long and busy day at work. I walk in the front door, pass through the hall, and enter the kitchen. On my right, at the entry to the family room, sit a laundry basket and a plastic bin overflowing with my daughter’s clothes. I close my eyes for a second, breathe, and walk on, ignoring the chaos.

Straight ahead, on a kitchen chair, are the groceries I picked up for her over the last weekend. There’s really no better place to put them and the days are ticking by quickly, so they’re staying on the chair: a jug of canola oil, a Costco-sized box of Frosted Mini-Wheats, a leaning stack of tortillas. On the floor in front of the chair is a green cloth grocery bag bulging with canned goods.

I move on into the kitchen, looking for a spot to drop my stuff from work. On the counter are my daughter’s beloved KitchenAid stand mixer, a hand-me-down from my sister, and her juicer. I glance to my left, into the living room and dining room. In front of the piano is another clear storage bin full of cleaning supplies, dishes, and paper products.

I breathe and move on. This is all just my daughter’s stuff. She lives in an off-campus apartment now, but she spent the spring semester studying abroad and sublet it through the summer. So she brought home everything but her furniture, and it was tucked away all spring, but over the last few months it’s been dug out and spread throughout my house. Her own bedroom is a fire hazard, a maze of storage bins and baskets full of stuff.

My son’s room, on the other hand, is clean and tidy. Unnaturally, freakishly clean and tidy; usually it looks like a cyclone tore through. But today, five days before leaving for his freshman year in college, it’s strangely bare. He was warned to clean it before he left – “Or we will do it for you!” – and in the euphoria of departure and adventure he has thrown himself into the task.

Besides, all of his college stuff is in the spare bedroom. I’ve spent the summer collecting necessities and it would have gotten lost in his debris-field bedroom, so I started stacking it all in here. On the futon, a tightly rolled area rug and bedding: mattress egg crate pad, mattress liner, quilt, pillow, and a blanket. On the floor, almost fully blocking the door, is a teetering mountain of underbed storage boxes, two already jam-packed with stuff, a third half-way filled, and a fourth waiting for clothes. He’s got a green cloth bag of food too, random snacks I picked up at the grocery store the other day – ramen noodles, Doritos, NutriGrain bars, peanut M&Ms, Pop-Tarts.

On the floor nearby, the spiral notebook where I’ve been keeping my “packed stuff” list, sorted by underbed box. I know, I’m crazy, but when I’m asked, I want to be able to whip out the paper, run my finger down it, and say, “Yes, I did get a small sewing kit, and it’s in box two!”

Part of me is at my absolute wit’s end with all this clutter and mess. I am not known for keeping a pristine, white-glove house, but these heaps, these spilling-over boxes and baskets make me tense. I want them gone, I want things put away, I want doorways cleared and laundry baskets empty and available.

The rest of me looks at all this stuff and worries about what’s not here, worries especially for my son’s stack, about what I’ve forgotten, what I’ve left out, what he’s going to need and have a hard time getting with his limited transportation and shopping options on campus.

And mostly when I breathe and try not to think about the mess I try not to think about what it means, and how empty my house will be with the stuff gone – and the kids who will be staying behind with it.