Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

It was yesterday not today, but it made me happy that my college freshman daughter remembered to take a picture of her holding a "first day of class" sign, and she also called us at the end of the day and chatted for 20 minutes about her day and everything that's been going on.  It was so great to hear from her.

On the flipside, I am really struggling with her moving out.  It's not for the happy thread and not really for the grumpy thread either, but I had no idea how much it would affect me.  I think I'm taking it much worse than my wife is.  This is so hard.  People can tell you about it but you just don't know until you feel it.

I imagine it's a follow-on to the "First Day of Class" pictures that we GenX parents have been snapping of our kids and posting to social media for the past 20 years.  Since we're not there to take photos of them on campus, they have volunteers hanging around with the signs who are willing to snap the pics.  It keeps the tradition going and serves as advertising for the university who provided the sign.

Thanks, appreciate it.  Yeah it is indeed a particular kind of hurt.  I miss her for sure, but it's more than that-- I miss her in the future as well.  I miss that she won't be helping me decorate for Halloween or Thanksgiving or Christmas, and those were some of her favorite things to do.  Now as I think about putting out my Halloween decorations in a month or so, I'm not nearly as excited about it.  I've realized I was doing a lot of that stuff for her.  And it's no slight to my son, we have lots of things we do together, but he's never cared that much about decorations or festivities like that. 

There's just a lot of "last time we'll ever do this" that have already passed me by and I didn't even realize it at the time.  It's all catching up to me at once.

It's been pretty easy not to think about it all summer, because we were just SO busy planning her dorm room furnishings and decorations, shopping for it, getting her ready to go to freshman orientation, and all of that other stuff.  It was a complete whirlwind and we had a blast.  And then we delivered her to school, moved her in, said our goodbyes, and came home to... quiet.  Emptiness.

My son's already super busy with school and work and PSAT prep and Scouts, so we don't see him much anyway.  So now it's just us, and we love spending time together, but the focus of our lives for the past almost 20 years has been the kids, and now they just don't need us they way they used to.  It's going to take some time to adjust.  I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it's pretty painful right now.