I Became a Mom in College; Now My Daughter’s Applying to College

I’ve been helping my 17-year-old daughter, a senior in high school, apply to college.

I’ve watched her type her applications, and it sparked a flashback to when I sat in the kitchen of my run-down college apartment and learned I was pregnant with her.

I’ll never forget the look of the brown linoleum floor illuminated under the harsh fluorescent light, its buzzing the only other sound competing with my sobs. My boyfriend held his head in his hands, the positive pregnancy tests fanned around him like the color sticks at a nail salon.

Is it really possible that I was only a few years older than my daughter is right now? She, who still prefers me to run in and grab the smoothie I preordered because she doesn’t like to talk to people? The girl whose room is messier than I ever thought possible? The one whose kindergarten picture was so perfect it took my breath away?

I can’t even fathom what it would look like for her to be facing down motherhood in a few short years, so it’s stirred some new emotions up for me.

I was so young when I found out I was pregnant

I distinctly remember my boyfriend picking me up for class at the beginning of that semester. The sun was shining, my gold hoops were swinging, and as I hopped into his truck, I felt a surge of hope and excitement for the future.

That was a few weeks before I would realize that my period was not coming after all. Looking at my daughter now, it’s finally hitting me: I was so young.

The naive self-confidence of my younger, college self crumbled that night in my apartment kitchen, and I can’t say that I ever regained it. Becoming a mother at any stage can have that effect on you. It carves you apart, empties you out, and makes you question everything at all times forever.

I grieve for my younger self, but I was always meant to be her mother

Now, as my teenage daughter teeters on the cusp of the age I was when I had her, I feel a little bit of loss and grief for my own self at her stage.

Seeing her with the world at her fingertips reminds me of how I felt just before she came into existence. I had no fears. I was confident in a way I would never be again.

But what I remember the most, among the uncertainty, the anxiety, and the complete reorganizing of myself, is the moment I met her, the instant the nurse laid her on my chest. The moment my newborn baby nestled herself into me, burrowing, it felt as though she had straight into my heart; I felt a complete recognition, like nothing I could ever describe. My only thought was, Oh. It’s you.

I remember a complete calm settling into my being, as if we were two souls who had known each other forever, simply meeting again.

I’m excited for all the opportunities she has before her

I feel like I’ve spent the past 18 years learning who I am with her and because of her. Overnight, I’m supposed to relearn what it’s like to live without her here. I feel a mixture of fear and excitement for her future, much like I did in those early days of her existence.

I also feel grief for the girl I was when I had her, but I don’t want her to share in that grief.

I want her to feel the freedom I had at her age, even if I acknowledge the loss of my own.

I want her to have a life I did not have, while never, for a second, feeling guilt for her life.

I want things that feel impossible, for both of us. But she has the world at her fingertips now, and I want so much for her to embrace every bit of it, maybe, selfishly, for both of us.

And no matter what happens, I hope and pray that we can always find our way back together, just like that moment we first met, when I can hold her close again and whisper, Oh, it’s you.