It really started last night.  Because my daughters is deaf and wears cochlear implants that come off at night, she needs an alarm clock that will shake the bed to wake her up. The school has one that they put in the room that is tied to the fire alarm but we had no idea how to work it. So we took her alarm clock from home that she’s used for the past 10 years.  She brings it to her dorm, plugs it in and the shaker itself, starts shaking and won’t stop no matter what she does. Now she has to really figure out how to work the schools alarm clock because it’s the only way she’ll wake up for her 8 o’clock classes this morning. Her roommate doesn’t have classes until 12pm.  After a frustrating evening, she does figure out the alarm clock and get that to work. Of course being her mom, the very first thing I looked at this morning was my phone to make sure she was awake. It wouldn’t of helped to just call her, because the vibration of her phone wouldn’t of been enough to wake her. To my very happy excitement there were messages I knew she was up. However those texts got very unhappy with in minutes.  I received the text “I have a problem”.

This was the first time she had to take the subway alone. She’s only taking the subway handful of times maybe even less. She knew what train she needed but she doesn’t know the subway system well enough yet. I mean look at the subway map. That is a confusing picture. She ended up getting on a downtown subway when she needed an uptown subway. The good news is that she got off at the next stop knowing she was going wrong, the bad news is she didn’t know how to get on the subway going correctly. She ended up back on the NYC streets extremely upset, frazzled, shaken and nervous. I’d feel the same way. I did feel the same way when I first started working in the city. I told her yesterday, last night and today will be the hardest night/day for you, but it will only get better and easier from here. She finally got herself back to Pennsylvania Station, which is a big hub for the trains and subways. She got on her correct subway and walked up to her school.

Breaks your heart to hear your child so frazzled like that. When she said “I want to come home, I don’t want to do this”, it is a reminder of those first days that we all had. When she said, “I’m in English class”, I replied to her “Congratulations, welcome to college”. Tomorrow will be better than today and by next week this will be a distant memory. My daughter is officially in college.