Nicky Rennie: Flat tack with new living arrangements

Nicky Rennie is on the move and so is her daughter — but not to the same place. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

One of the issues of having only one child is that you are doing everything for the first time and it’s the only time.

You really don’t get the chance to do things better or from a place of experience and wisdom.

The number of firsts once they hit the teenage years, quite simply, blows your hair back.

Now that my daughter has turned 18, school is but a distant memory and I think my heart might just explode. I thought teaching her to drive would do me in but, on top of that, there have been curfews to negotiate, parties to host, questionable clothes choices to grimace through, and trying to strike the balance between positive encouragement and behaving like a shrewish banshee when she doesn’t do what I think she should.

We have gone through that in a short amount of time and it really does cement that life goes far too fast.

The hours I lay awake, waiting for her to come home safely, seemed to drag at 2am or 3am but the reality is the time has gone by in the blink of an eye.

There is a reason for my melancholic musings (well, two reasons actually).

I am going to be moving out of our wee house that she came home to at 16 and Maggie has decided she wants to go flatting.

Thinking about what our lives will look like a month or so from now just makes me want to cry. Your children will always spread their wings at some stage but I’m not ready to be living on my own again in a squeaky-clean house.

The ironic thing is that I left home to move into my first flat at the age of 17 and, as is the human condition, didn’t give my parents’ feelings a second thought. It was me and three male friends too, which I thought nothing of at the time, but my father must have found that difficult.

I have spent an inordinately large amount of time cleaning up after her and then moaning about it — and now I think there are so many things I could have done better or just shut up about and enjoyed her more.

I’m grieving for our lives together and she hasn’t even left.

If I had a backup child or two, I probably wouldn’t be feeling quite so bereft, but I do. I feel so immensely sad it’s like a dark cloud has enveloped me and I can’t seem to shake it. I’m feeling like an empty nester but my little bird hasn’t taken flight. Yet.

No doubt once she finds a flat, there will be more firsts. Plates, cups and cutlery going missing, losing sheet sets and requests for financial assistance.

I’ll be able to have a little moan and everything will be right with the world.