Next month, my daughter is graduating high school.  When her senior year started, I said to myself and my friends, quite arrogantly and bravely, that I would not be that “sad empty-nester.”  I pictured all the freedoms that would come from her going off to college, like being able to boogie all over the country if it struck my fancy.  “Gypsy” is the word that came up often.
For my daughter’s whole life, as far back as she can remember, it has been us.  Of course, she spent time with her dad on a regular basis, but in our household, it has been us alone.  For the past 16 years, there has only been one man in our house and that was only for four months, so does that really count?  And good God, was he a total pain in the ass.  I would come home from work with my daughter and he would be half in the bag.  When I told him this was not to be our environment, he would say, “I only had two beers...”  I would tell him I’ve had some experience with alcohol (helllerrrr) and I can tell by the stupid look on his face that it was more than a couple.  I don’t care if anyone has a couple, but to try to cover it up, that’s where I had a problem.  It didn’t help when we went to my hometown for a wedding and he cracked a beer at my mom’s house at 9 a.m., looked at me, and said, “What?”  After a few warnings, I asked him to leave.
When it’s just you and your kid, for years and years, there is a lot of energy that goes to her.  A LOT.  I started thinking, what the hell am I going to do with all that energy?  I need a plan.  A walkabout after graduation?  Where would I walk, and why?  I’ve asked myself since the song “A Thousand Miles” came out, what would I walk 1,000 for?  I never had an answer until I watched “The Ride” with the host of “Amazing Race.”  He rode his bike across the country to raise a million dollars for MS. Then it hit me.  Of course!  One of my best friends from high school has two sisters with muscular dystrophy. I would do it for them, but to where?  I looked to NYC and the mileage was right, but standing out next to it was Philadelphia, PA.  Yes, Philly, to the Liberty Bell.  The Liberty Bell holds significance for me, and with the two combined, I have myself a walkabout.  
That’s what I was thinking last fall.  I even had a volunteer who offered to set up logistics across the country.  It would take about two months at 20 miles a day.  I thought it silly to start out on my first day and only make it as far as Cloquet before I would need to stop and stay at a motel. Thoughts of big-city turnpikes and walking side roads all by myself started to give me pause.  I wouldn’t mind the alone part—it’s keeping safe that would be a potential problem.  When I was thinking of Colorado as a place to relocate, I thought it would be a little more safe to walk there and found out there is a Liberty Bell in Denver, too!  Perfect!  Then I found out there’s a Liberty Bell in every state, thanks to the Department of Treasury promoting savings bonds in 1950.  
OK, so let’s not be so literal—maybe a more realistic walkabout would be from here to St. Paul’s Liberty Bell.  While walking, I will decide what to do with the next chapter of my life.  I could still raise a lot of dough.  If you had asked me three months ago what I would walk 1,000 miles for, my answer would have also been to see my soldier man again.  But we already know what happened with him, and that is a no-go.  The answer is the same:  love.
Back to that looming empty nest.  I also considered how dating might open up a little more—a few more freedoms allowed now that I wouldn’t have such an impressionable young lady in the house.  Then I rolled my eyes at myself, because why-o-why would I want to suddenly lower my standards just because it would only be me?  I did that before my daughter was born.  Not that I didn’t have any standards, but based on my choices and how it all ended up, I did not make healthy relationship decisions.  After she was born, it was like a whole new set of rules appeared. When I considered a man, I thought about her first and how he would affect her.  Maybe I went to the extreme with that.  Not maybe—I did for sure.  Now my poor kid can’t even picture me with a man and probably thinks I’m some kind of asexual nun.  
What I really wanted to teach her is that you can be happy all by yourself.  Having a boyfriend is great, but you can have a full life, with many passions, without interruption or interpretation of what that life should be.  Man, I was so tired: from the past, from my ex-boyfriends telling me this or that—what was possible for me and what wasn’t, what I was like, as if I didn’t know myself. For a long time I didn’t, but I certainly do now, and that’s why I’m the slightest bit scared.
It was also my intention to teach her to pay attention to her inner voice.  No, not the “voices in your head” kind, but your soul speak.  When you are very quiet and still, you can listen to your intuition and follow your instincts, and THAT, my friends, will lead you to your heart’s desire.  This is not taught in school.  A little more time should have been put into how to properly clean a bathroom or grocery shop, but I always felt these inner lessons would be much more valuable in the long run.  You can figure that other domestic stuff out as you go.  It’s what’s in your head that counts.
Now that graduation is drawing nearer, I find that I am totally full of shit.  I’m going to be a sad empty-nester, at least for a bit.  I found this out at the beginning of her play at the high school this month.  Silent tears streamed down that I tried to hide from my best friend, because if she even so much as looked at me, I would be blubbering openly with no real explanation.  My heart aches at the thought of my little girl making her way out in this world that has less mercy and compassion than greed.  I can only hope the lessons sank in and that all that eye-rolling didn’t affect her hearing.

“Tricia Waltman is a the creator and owner of Vision Art Designs, an inspirational collage artist, and has written for The Reader since 2011.”