A couple of weeks ago Nora and I headed to Ohio to tour colleges. We drove (a bold move) following a weekend in Virginia with friends and, on the way out, took a gorgeous route through West Virginia that Nora, tired from a late night, mostly slept through in the way back of the car, although she said she did hear it when I put on John Denver. Which, I explained, I had to do.

Our college experience, so far, has been marked by qualities I did not expect. I suppose I expected the obvious ones as we approached Nora’s senior year of high school; that it would be intense, stressful and chaotic. And I can’t say we haven’t had those moments. But it’s also been calm and funny and enjoyable. It’s been fascinating, and random - like, what were we even doing in Ohio?

The answer is sort of how everything goes, you know? How life, through a series of decisions, falls into place. She’d heard good things about schools from friends who go there; we thought it would be insightful to get off the east coast; my brother went to college in Ohio. Why not?

We drove until the sky got huge and the land got flat and the corn - OMG those cornfields - endless! I told Nora I get nervous in landscapes like this, as we made our way through an early evening thunderstorm to our first stop. No rocky outcrops, nowhere to hide. She said she liked it, that wide open expanse, even all threatening with lightning like that. She took my phone from the console and put on “The Wizard of Oz” theme, and we laughed hysterically even as I reminded her that it was the wrong state. It was the right vibe.

The logistics, the details, of our experience so far, it has been like this. Booking tours, scanning stats, a lot of laughing, which is how it always is for me with Nora. These steps - even the application process, although I’m sure she would disagree to some extent - have felt less challenging to me than I imagined they would.

The emotional part of it, however. That crept up. In between exploring college towns and reading Nora’s first essay draft, without warning (because I didn’t think I was this kind of person, really) I got all weepy; the caricature of a high school senior mom. Like, we are in Ohio! And, wait a second, the idea is that someday I might leave her here?

Nora has always been the easy one. I’m putting it in writing, which is dangerous, because my other children will find this and hold it against me, but it’s irrefutable. She was born like that, a staid presence in an eventually frenetic family. I came downstairs this morning and Nora was quietly making breakfast, serenity incarnate. I came down five minutes later and Gabe had joined her, put on Biz Markie (loud) and was brewing tea that he wouldn’t drink. He makes tea every morning, about one minute before he is scheduled to leave. I find it, hot, on the counter, ghosted.

What this college experience has done for me is - well - I’ll put it this way. I imagine myself balancing spinning plates on both hands, while Nora has weaved in and out, no problem, all these years. And what this has done is it has given me the gift - a gift is what it is - of putting the plates down, because this year is all about her. Focusing so much energy on this one child: the constant guitar, the songs she writes; the way she leaves her book propped on her pillow, ready for bedtime; the friendships she fosters; all the giddy excitement that characterizes a 17-year-old’s life. And what that has been is a pure delight. And it has transitioned from a logical analysis of where she might like to go to a reckoning with the eventual leaving.

What I decided is I will be that weepy senior parent! I will be the hell out of her. Soaking up the afternoons when all my children get home, throwing backpacks where they don’t go, raiding the fridge, fighting (who would have thought it? now my favorite time of day!). Ensuring that when Nora got her senior portrait done they took the ridiculous shot of her holding up a license plate that says “SENIOR,” that is the one I want the most.

Lately I feel like my fingers are barely able to move fast enough across the keyboard to catch the feelings I’m having as they exit my mind. So many feelings, nowhere to hide them. But it’s like a badge we earn as parents, like the sleeplessness everyone knows about when you have a newborn. You can settle right into it, is the good news, sitting at a sun-dappled picnic table with your first child on an impossibly charming campus somewhere deep in Ohio, saying, “I can totally see you here,” voice wavering, you can’t help it! Because you totally can.