My son James has everything a nineteen-year-old could wish for: a rucksack the size of a small bungalow, a one-way ticket to Bangkok, and a general air of excitement. Panicky Mam here has approximately 40 browser tabs open about travel insurance and vaccinations, and the vibe of a woman quietly falling apart while pretending to be very chill.
You see, he’s off to Thailand in April with three mates and no fixed plan beyond “seeing what happens.” In theory, he’s due back in time to start university in September, but in practice, who knows? An aeon stretches between now and then. And while I’m excited for the adventures ahead of him, I wish the pride and the all-consuming panic weren’t quite so indistinguishable from each other. That cliché about children being your beating heart walking around outside your body has never felt quite so viscerally true.
(Reader, I have already checked the time difference between Cardiff and Bangkok fourteen times, and he hasn’t even made a packing list yet.)
He saved for this trip himself. Since September, he’s woken up at 6:30 am and caught two buses to do the quiet, unglamorous work of a teaching assistant. This is how he’s squirrelled away enough cash to fund his adventure. The fact he’s worked so hard makes me feel a little more optimistic; surely the lad who saved patiently for months to buy his freedom does not lose his passport on day two?
There are six weeks until I drive him to Heathrow and wave him off (not that I’m counting or anything). And the thing I wasn’t prepared for is the specificity of the pre-emptive grief that’s already creeping in.
I’ve been savouring the sounds and textures of him; the midnight fridge raids, the muffled bass from his room, the way he still occasionally phones me from upstairs rather than walking down twelve steps like a human with functioning legs. It’s the shape of him on the sofa and the half-drunk cups of tea abandoned on every conceivable surface. The absolute nuclear bomb site that is his bedroom will stay exactly as it is, obviously: a sacred monument to Pot Noodles and resistance to the concept of a bin.
And then there’s Joni, our chihuahua, four furry pounds of Mexican sass and love, who’s spent the last seven years curled up at James’s feet every evening. She doesn’t know he’s going yet. I keep imagining her padding over to his usual spot, turning three circles, looking up expectantly, and finding nobody there. I am not remotely ready for the expression on her tiny face when she realises he’s not coming back anytime soon. Who will serenade us on his beloved guitar with 90s indie hits when he’s gone?
I remember the last time I walked him to primary school, his tiny hand gripping mine, Spider-Man bag bouncing on his back. And then I blinked, and suddenly here we are: all six feet of sinew, facial hair, strong opinions about geopolitics, and a Thai phrasebook. For nineteen years, attending to his survival and well-being has been my full-time job, and now I’m about to be made redundant. Who am I, and what am I even for, when we’re on different continents? I genuinely don’t know yet, and that’s the bit nobody warned me about.
I’ve been thinking about new routines and about reclaiming the living room, about getting back to running properly, reading more, and finally tackling the mess in the attic. I am going to be enormously productive and absolutely grand.
It’s International Women’s Day as I write this, which feels apt. Because when I think about who’s holding my hand through the anxiety of this, it is, without exception, other women. Mothers, grandmothers, friends who have stood at their own departure gates with their hearts in their mouths and their chins up. Letting their babies go, while clenching their insides like steel rods. I’m standing on their shoulders today, and I’m grateful for every one of them.
The much-mocked gap yah is apparently having a moment, with University deferrals up 28% since 2012. And honestly, fair play. Once you’re on the adulting hamster wheel, it’s tricky to step back off. After the stress of A Levels and pandemic home-schooling, James has more than earned some beaching and partying.
I hope he comes back with more than a tan: stories he’ll be telling at forty, a better idea of who he is, and the quiet confidence of someone who worked out he could manage just fine without his mam.
What keeps me steady when I think about this sonless summer is that I raised him to do exactly this. Every time I dragged him somewhere random on holiday or talked to him about the world and all it contains, I was building a person who would one day buy a one-way ticket, confident it would all work out okay in the end.
So, in 40 days, I’ll drive three very excited young men to the airport, then head back down the M4, where I won’t have to hold the tears in any longer.
Then I’ll make tea, cwtch Joni, remind her that we are fine, and get on with the business of missing my baby boy. James, consider this column a substitute for texting you every five minutes. Be careful! Don’t drink the local spirits! Never leave your mates alone! And for the love of Cardiff City, eat some greens!
(Who am I kidding?)
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