When the kids leave for college, we miss them, of course. We no longer get to hear them complain about their teachers or about us. We don't have to lend them the car. We don't have to chauffeur them around and have those intense, 15-minute drive-by talks. This is the first, and most obvious, source of our discontent when the children leave. As I've written about, extensively--perhaps over-extensively--in BEYOND THE MOMMY YEARS, my book about what happens to mothers when the children leave home.

But there's another, much less-spoken about source of sadness when the kids leave. Hardly anybody ever mentions it. That's because it's a bit embarrassing to admit. So, I'll be the first to confess it, right here:

We send our children off into the world, and to college, with more than a little bit of jealousy in our hearts. How great would it be, we think, to be the one leaving home and starting off in life? (Again.) How great would it be to know what we know now, and to have a second chance at being young? How much would you give for such a chance? A million bucks? (If I had it, I'd give it!) That's why I absolutely adore the movie Peggy Sue Got Married, in which Boomer actress Kathleen Turner (born in 1954) plays middle-aged Peggy Sue, who gets to go back to high school, only with everything she knows stored in her brain!

That's my dream--only I'd choose to return to college, since high school was mostly an utter waste of time. Also, college was a lot more fun.

Anyway, it's difficult to watch our children get to do all of that--without us, no less!--while the only thing we get to do is pay the bills. And don't you wonder, every so often, if they really are appreciating it enough? Enjoying it enough? Relishing it enough? Because you're the one who knows that life doesn't get much easier or better or more fun than the years in which all you have to do is meet new friends, take classes from random professors, hang out on weekends, and pretend that life is difficult and oh so meaningful.

Hey, I could do that again! In a flash..

What do you think? Am I the only one with a twinge of jealousy in my heart as my children go off to college? Tell me I'm not alone!!