Day 23: Missing Out?

Taking my boys for college visits last year and this year, makes me wonder if I missed out by living at home.

The only options I had were the universities that were within driving distance from my house – Loyola University Chicago, DePaul University, and University of Illinois at Chicago. My older sister was attending Loyola, so as soon as I got the acceptance letter I knew that’s where I would be going come fall.

I wonder if I missed out on being independent. It makes me wonder if living at home caused me to miss out on learning how to cook, how to do laundry, how to live on my own. Because truth be told, I lived at home until I got married at 30 years old. Up until that time, my mom cooked the majority of the meals, with my younger sister cooking here and there since she enjoyed cooking and trying out new recipes. My laundry was done by my mom, and my sisters when my mom was visiting her parents in Greece. Living on my own? I’m still waiting to do that since I went from living with my parents and sister to living with my husband and then later my children.

I still learned to cook – at 30 years old when I got married – and even though it’s been a short 20 years of cooking, I’m already tired of thinking of what to cook!

I learned how to do laundry too. I do it so well that my family saves it all for me claiming, “I can’t do it like you do.” They must also refer to folding it and putting it away.

I’m still waiting to live on my own, but as my home is slowly emptying out I don’t want to learn how to live alone! So, I decided that I will be nice enough to allow my kids to go away to college, to experience what it’s like to not be able to enjoy a nice steak or Italian dinner; doing their own laundry so they can think twice about how quick they want to throw the outfit they wore for an hour into the laundry. But I won’t be nice enough to let them move out permanently after they graduate college. They will have to get married to escape living with me!