Mark Clevenger’s daughter is off to college and everything has changed, except what matters.
You knew this was coming. You knew it when your child was 2 and she climbed into a wicker basket, asking you to push her around the kitchen floor. “Again,” she said, when you were exhausted.
She breezed through elementary, middle and high school and there you are, dropping her off at a university in New York. You help move her into a dorm and good Lord. Three girls crammed into a tiny space. “I can’t live like this,” she says.
You share a goodbye dinner at a sushi restaurant. You won’t eat the spicy tuna roll. You will stare at it. Later, you will watch your child walk away with a TJ Maxx bag, a plastic sunflower sticking out the top.
Your child will fly home for Christmas. She will talk about awesome bagels. She will say New York’s cool but she might transfer back to the Bay Area. Your heart will leap; don’t say a word.