Very personal thoughts that I wrote on this day 13 years ago, about my son.
Sometimes it might not be very easy to let another person go but one still has to do it...
It can be especially difficult for a mother when a child goes away from the house.
My boy is not going yet, because he is 16, but today I got the feeling that this process has begun. This is the moment when I realized how big my one and only little one has become. Earlier in the day, when I was ironing his stuff so that they don't look as if they were pulled out of a dog's mouth, as we say in Hungarian, I had time to contemplate this.
Right now he is sitting on the airport coach and I am sitting on needles (another Hungarian expression...) till I get the sign that he met his hosts. He is going to Stockholm by himself (which he has done a couple of times, so there is no any reason for me to be nervous), yet this trip is different, and not only because I am not there.
This is not only a vacation for him when he stays without his family and with his friends, but the start of a completely new life for him: he will also live there from now on, and start a high school. Complete change of environment, no Dad and Grannies and Godmother around, no Túrórudi, gesztenyepüré, halászlé or szilvásgombóc (never mind the words, these are some special Hungarian yummies one basically can't live without :-))
New life in a foreign place where he will communicate in a language which is even a second language in the country, much higher challenges at school, another house to live in, and so on.
Not to mention that I am also re-arranging my life pretty much, so basically most of the things in my son's life will be absolutely new.
In the past one year or so, I could see him growing up a lot - not mainly bodywise but as a person. Of course, his look got also more manlike, but the bigger change is taking his own life in his own hands better. And I am very glad about that. From choosing the high school and arranging almost everything by himself so that he can go there, to organizing and partly even financing this vacation trip, so that he doesn't have to wait 2 more weeks for me but he can already go now and participate at a festival he was looking forward since last August.
He only left some of his belongings here for me to take care of - yeah, and the dishes he didn't have time to do today, which would be his job...
Now I am here on my own in this wonderful apartment in Budapest and although I love to be alone when I feel I need my space, it is a little bit strange emptiness at the moment. Through the years, we are used to be without each other when I was on the road etc, (fortunately he was never the type who would cling only onto Mom), and we will be together in Stockholm soon - yet I feel this moment is different, kind of a milestone.
It is The Beginning of an almost-grown-up life of my son.
Many of my friends from Budapest, Vienna and Zürich knew him as a small child and if they ever wondered how my kid was doing - they see him now as a young adult.
He has chosen Stockholm as his home, so please my friends over there, welcome him, he is a cool cat.
The proud chef, he made this delicious dish himself
Well, I got pretty emotional a couple of times today, and of course, I was hiding it so that he wouldn't notice). I am still, for some moments, but it was good to let my thoughts out, thanks for listening :-)
Cover photo: a very popular Hungarian dish called túróscsusza (TOO-roash-chu-sah), that my son made for me and my girlfriend who was staying with us. Pasta with cottage cheese, bacon and sour cream.