Writing for Fun
September 2017
Flying The Nest And Letting Go - Anna Browning
The hired white van arrived and parked expectantly on our driveway. We started to fill it up with Louisa's belongings. It seemed like she was taking everything, bar the kitchen sink. Her clothes, TV, music centre, CDs, DVDs, bedding, books, and finally food. I had done a large food shop, hopefully enough to tide her over for some time. You would never believe she was only going to West Sussex and not Outer Mongolia, with the amount of food I had bought from Tesco. There was no way she was going to eat it all, still it eased my anxiety, knowing she wouldn't starve.
The journey took around two and a half hours as we hurtled through the Sussex A roads. We finally arrived at her digs. A tiny terraced house being shared with four other girls. Louisa had been allocated the ground floor front room. Quite a large sunny room facing south. The fact that it was beside the front door and was on the ground floor worried me. As Louisa seemed so vulnerable to the criminal element in the area, if there was one. She could be kidnapped by white slave traffickers, or raped or even murdered while she was sleeping. My imagination was running riot. You name it and it would happen.
We started to unload the van while Louisa filled up the meagre storage in her room with her stuff. She soon ran out of space for the remaining bits and pieces. She was in urgent need of more storage. Louisa was certainly a chip off the old block, a hoarder like her mum, never throwing anything out. Still she would manage and learn. My little girl. (She actually towered over my five feet and one inch). My first born leaving home and starting a new independent life away from us her protective parents. How was she going to manage without us.
A vision appeared in my mind of Louisa, cold, hungry, ill, cowering with fear. ‘Snap out of it Anna.’ Our little girl was no longer little but a smart independent woman, full of excitement and anticipation to the adventure waiting ahead of her for the next four years. With an ache in our hearts, but filled with love and pride we left her. Letting go was the only course of action for us to take.