When Your Kid Moves Back In After College

When I sent my firstborn daughter off to college, the tears flowed out of me like a leaky faucet. The first few weeks were the hardest. All it took was a gaze into her vacant, oddly clean bedroom to set off a downpour of fresh emotion. Though we still had a younger daughter at home (complete with her own teenage drama), there was an eerie silence in our house, and everyone felt it, but most of all me.

The gnawing loneliness was placated with phone calls, weekend visits and holiday reunions. Eventually, we all got used to living as 3, instead of 4. Younger sister joyfully helped herself to clothes, makeup and shoes left behind; I bought fewer groceries and worried a little less about one more kid staying out past midnight. Our cell phone bills soared but our water bill diminished. This reorganization wasn't so bad, after all. My husband and I felt a little lighter on our feet, one kid down, one to go.

As time passed, I started looking at that empty bedroom with new potential. It could be the yoga/meditation room I'd always dreamed of, or my own personal writing retreat. I envisioned wall to wall book shelves and a sparkling new wood floor. Oh, how this sounded better and better to me.

The 4 years went by in a flash and, before we knew it, our first born announced that she would be returning home for a while. She needed time to settle into her new job, save money, find suitable roommates. We felt an odd mix of pleasant anticipation and dread. Yes, dread. While her departure had left us sad and sorely unbalanced, we had regained our equilibrium over time and a 3-way harmony had been established.

Our freshly-minted, college grad burst back into our home, like a gush of spring rain. She crammed my would-be yoga/writing room with garbage bags of clothes, scrappy old furniture, sooty candles, stacks of used books and gobs of photos thumb-tacked onto newly painted walls. We started keeping the door closed again, as it was reclassified as a private property. Do not enter.

Half empty bottles of wine, yes wine, showed up in our refrigerator. As is quite common with this generation, our little girl became a vino connoisseur while away on our dime. Younger sister welcomed big sis with open arms. She was thoroughly delighted with this lift on prohibition, since we had been a no-alcohol zone and suddenly we were not.

Curfew, forget it. No respectable 22 year old who has lived away from home, will adhere to any time limits on having fun. She was, however, willing to negotiate just where she would be having some of this fun, especially of the male variety, if you catch my drift.

My grocery lists now included plenty of boxed mac and cheese, ramen noodles and microwave pizza. I am still holding out hope that I can reprogram her taste buds, if time permits.

Please don't get me wrong. She is still our darling daughter with her father's smile and my wavy hair. We're proud that we created a home that was worthy to return to and besides her new emancipation proclamation, she is the same sweet kid we raised.

My husband and I are still figuring out how to parent someone who has one foot in the door and one foot out. She must call to check in, be mindful not to disturb those of us who like to sleep at night, no outside phone calls after 10 and little sis is still under prohibition, so don't even try to slip her a sip of the grape stuff. We'll be sending our youngest off soon enough - and then, perhaps, I'll get my yoga/writing room after all.