On June 30th, I took a trip with my friend Beya and our youngest boys to Clear Creek Reservoir to paddleboard. The wind was strong. The water was murky. The sun was hot. We managed to make it around the reeds but no further. When I emerged from the water, I found a horrifying sight. My paddleboard fin had come out of its socket and had fallen to the reservoir floor. The boys searched the mud for the fin, but it was nowhere to be found. No worries, I thought. That's what Amazon is for. I searched the internet as deeply as the boys searched the river. Nope. Not for this paddleboard. This fin is particular. It has little notches to anchor the fin (not so well if you don't slide the lock all the way through). I called CA Paddleboards, the company who made our board, to see if they had replacement fins鈥攖he kind with notches in the bottom for extra hold. They haven't made that kind of fin in years. Someone in Utah had just lost his, and they'd had to share the disappointing news with him.
My husband, Erik, wasn't pleased about the loss. He teased that maybe I could go to the Maker Lab at NAU to get a new one printed. That seemed impossible to me. Farfetched to him. But not to be deterred, I visited the Maker Lab website. I learned Tinkercad. I tinkered and prototyped and screwed up measurements. Zoe kept telling me I needed calipers. Max, mentioned only when I had almost finished drawing the fin, having bruised my head hitting it against the wall of three-dimensional design, 鈥淥h yeah. I learned Tinkercad in science last year. You鈥檙e doing it wrong.鈥� 聽I made one fin. It was too small. I made another fin. The notches were in the wrong place. I made another fin. The base was too wide. But five prototypes later, I finally have a fin that slides into the notch inside the paddleboard fin-holding device. Now, summer is mostly over, but perhaps, it will warm up enough for us to make it to the water one more time before winter.
As I hope for a windless, warm day to try out my fin, I鈥檓 getting ready for the school year. Like every August, I鈥檓 writing my syllabi. I鈥檓 attending convocation. I鈥檓 emailing students. But this year has a difference. My oldest child, Zoe, left for college. I wrote a long essay that isn鈥檛 quite right for Flag Live about how sending a child to college is like giving birth a second time鈥攂ut with the sadder consequence that instead of bringing home a baby from the hospital, you abandon that baby 300 miles away in a dormitory that is only as big as the giant size king bed I returned to where she once slept between me and her dad.
Leaving her was the hardest thing I鈥檝e ever done. Even harder than conjuring a paddle board fin out of thin air. But if it is hard for me, it鈥檚 even doubly hard for Zoe. I鈥檝e been teaching college students for 15 years, advising them, mentoring them, trying to be helpful. But it鈥檚 not until I saw the work from Zoe鈥檚 point of view that I realized how much purpose, perseverance, and strength it takes to begin college.
Our whole family has been on mission Get-Ready-for-University all summer, nay, all year. It began with simple emails. Don鈥檛 forget to choose your meal plan. Contact potential roommates. Hope they snap you back or connect on Insta. Pick your major. Now? Yes, now. But I鈥檓 not sure鈥ou can change your mind. But make that mind up now. And be pretty certain or you might end up needing to enroll in 15 additional required hours. Did you meet with your advisor? Did you choose your meal plan? We told you way back in April to choose your meal plan.
Even I, who spends a lot of time navigating campus computer systems, had a hard time figuring out the University of Arizona鈥檚 system. They use a different Learning Management System. It turns out, I really didn鈥檛 know how to enroll in classes. It鈥檚 not the same as NAU and thus, a puzzle that I had to jerry-rig together. I鈥檓 pretty sure she鈥檚 in classes now, although where the writing course we enrolled her in went, I will never know.
During move-in week, we were told to park on the far side of the dorm because why direct people to the actual parking lot when you can make them wait 45 minutes to park for 10 minutes to toss everything your daughter owns into a rolly bin and hope you didn鈥檛 smash her 4,000 pounds of toiletries or lose her keys.
Oh. You did lose her keys deep in the bottom of the bin.
Two hours later (car re-parked somewhere less daunting), you have tetrissed her tiny room into a simulacrum of a living space鈥攂ins stacked on bins (full of toiletries), extension cords running up and through and down and around, detachable hooks and picture hangers installed, the all-important tiny stapler placed with an emphasis that resounded 鈥榮chool will happen here.鈥�
And then we had to leave. The first days, Zoe was miserable. I was miserable. She texted, 鈥淚 miss you.鈥� I texted, 鈥淚 miss you too.鈥� She texted, 鈥淚 miss my home.鈥� I texted, 鈥淗ow is this even home without you?鈥� But the next day got a little better. She texted me 4 times instead of 5. She and her roommate went to Target. They found a swimming pool. Then, Sunday was a little better still. There was a club fair. She texted that she signed up for aerial, dance team, power lifting, and roller derby. On Monday, she only texted three times. 鈥淚 love math, so today was better.鈥� Tuesday was better still. 鈥淚 slept in until 10:30. Tuesdays are my easy days.鈥� By Wednesday, I got a lot of phone calls, but that was because her schedule left no room between math and psych and the doors were locked and what should she do? I said, change your schedule, if you can, for a better class. That鈥檚 the best part of college; you can adapt your schedule to suit your needs.
Letting my first born go to college seemed impossible. Leaving home seemed impossible to Zoe. Figuring out how Tinkercad worked and how to build a brand-new paddleboard fin seemed entirely impossible. But every bit of effort makes the impossible a little more possible until you are fully-finned and floating all the way to college knowing that you can float home again whenever your schedule, once you鈥檝e got it sorted, permits.