My heart tells me independence already suits my daughter

IT’S 11am. I’m driving up to Cork with my youngest. She’s leaving home for college today. And, if I were to take a tack of notice of what sensible people are saying, inside I should be cheering.

But approaching the main road to Cork, I’m unable to invoke any of their mantras — not even my mother’s, which are always nice and punchy. I can’t invoke “change is the rule of life”, let alone “beware of self-pity”. And as for “keep the heart up, love”— my heart has taken on a life all of its own this morning; a dangerous state of being, if ever there was one.

I’m sure there is a mantra to cover what I’m doing today — I mean the law of probability dictates that there’s nothing in the world that’s happened to me that hasn’t happened before to someone else. There must be a parent — someone somewhere — who has put their youngest daughter’s life into the hands of a neurosurgeon and then, seven months afterwards, saw them off to college. So if you are out there — and you find this drive familiar (minor details notwithstanding) — mantras on a postcard please.

11am. Started off ok but now, on the N71 my heart is all over the shop. Half of it’s stuck in the recent past- which, happy or sad, has all been hard and another bit of it is racing to catch up with my daughter, who’s already in her future and sod the past, it’s gone. She needs the rear-view mirror, she says, yanking it around, for the tricky business of applying gel eyeliner in a rattling car. She thinks I can drive just as well without a rear view, what with the giant stuffed gorilla “and that stupid roll of carpet blocking it anyway”.

12pm. Approaching Cork and the going is not so good; while from time to time I find I’m patting myself on the back for raising four children and seeing them off safely into the world (which might be as close to cheering as I get today), my heart feels like it’s giving out — even though I know from experience that hearts don’t really give out; they just get sick for a bit, and very, very tired and then, given half a chance, recover.

12.15pm. On main roundabout in outskirts of Cork and the whole of my heart is in my mouth; there’s a roll of carpet wedged tight on top of the gear stick, and my daughter is checking her phone and every time I need to shift gears, I have to shout “NOW!” at her, and “put your back into it, for god’s sake it’s not a house”, so that she might lift up the carpet instead of checking her phone, and help me get us off this bloody roundabout alive.

12.20pm. My daughter is sulking; I have no memory of what else I might have shouted on the roundabout but it’s obvious she has. I pull over to the side of the road, switch off the engine and breathe very slowly; like I said, it’s a dangerous state of being when your heart takes on a life of its own. “I just can’t believe you’re leaving,” I say. “I’ll be grand mum,” she says, “I promise.”

1pm. I pull up outside my eldest son’s apartment. Lug up the bundles and bundles of “nothing to wear” from car to spare room. “It’ll be home from home,” my son and girlfriend say. Then lug up small mountains of Penneys knickers and the big wire love-heart, stuck with old photos, that hung over her bed at home.

2pm. Make tea, bring it up to my daughter’s room. Find her sitting on her new bed, holding a pillow, eyes shining. My heart tells me independence already suits her. But it’s the pillow-case — her old, favourite brushed-cotton one with the flowers on — that might just be my undoing.

Soon after, I say goodbye quickly, keeping it light.

Drive home. She’s back at weekends. And it’s much easier to drive without the roll of carpet and gorilla.

And somewhere, deep inside my heart, there’s a tiny little room where I’m cheering, but for which, right now, I seem to have lost the key.