This Past Weekend
This past weekend, I moved my youngest daughter, Mili, into American University.
I’ve done this five times before, so I’ve got the system down. Blue packing bags, not suitcases, because they smush down to nothing once you’ve unpacked them and you’re not stuck hauling five giant bags back out to the car. I remembered basically everything this time. Except the tools. We bought furniture that needed assembling and brought zero ways to assemble it. Some things never change.
But here’s what also doesn’t change: it doesn’t get easier just because you’ve done it before. It just gets more familiar.
There’s something about dropping off your last kid specifically. It’s a chapter closing and a new one opening in the same afternoon, in the same parking lot. I was excited for her. Proud of her. And also standing in that dorm hallway trying to keep it together, because six kids in and I still haven’t figured out how to do this without getting emotional.
Full Circle
This move-in looked different than the other five. It wasn’t my husband and me this time. It was my oldest son and me.
He’s the one I moved in first, years ago, back when I had no other move-ins to compare it to and no idea what I was doing. I mostly figured that one out as I went.
And now here he was, helping me move his youngest sibling in. Hauling the same blue bags I’ve hauled five times before. Standing with me in a half-built dorm room realizing we didn’t have a single tool to assemble any of it, which meant a run to Ace Hardware before we could finish anything. It was a full circle moment I didn’t see coming: the kid I once dropped off on my own is now the one showing up to help me let go of the last one.
Every Kid Launches Differently
What gets me every single time is how differently kids handle this day.
Some are three steps ahead, unpacking their own boxes and basically waving you toward the door before the car’s even empty. They want the goodbye done. They’re ready to be the version of themselves who doesn’t need a parent in the room to feel capable.
Some want you in line with them for every last errand. The lanyard pickup, the dining hall tour, walking the dorm room from every angle. They’re not embarrassed to want you there, and honestly, neither am I.
And some make it very clear, without saying a word, that they’d prefer you not be visible at all. Because god forbid you embarrass them by existing too close to the elevator.
Six kids in, I’ve seen every version, sometimes from siblings who couldn’t be more different. And here’s what I believe: every version is right. There’s no correct way to walk into your next chapter. There’s only your way. My job was never to make them all launch the same. It was to let each one launch as themselves.
The Launching Pad
Driving away from campus, this time with my son next to me instead of a car full of siblings, that’s what kept coming to mind. Move-in day is a launching pad. It’s the moment a kid stops being a passenger in their own life and starts flying it. Whether they feel ready or not. Whether I feel ready to let them or not.
Launching pads aren’t comfortable. They’re not built for comfort, they’re built for liftoff. That’s true for the one taking off and for the one standing on the ground watching.
I remember this exact same feeling with my son, the one now sitting next to me in the car, the first time around. I figured it would fade by kid six. It didn’t. It just showed up again, right on schedule.
What This Has to Do With Confidence
Here’s why I keep coming back to this when I talk about confidence: move-in day is confidence with no polish on it.
We like to picture confident people as the ones who feel ready. Who walk into the new job or the new city without a flicker of doubt. That’s not what I’ve seen, not in my own life and not in six kids heading off to six different first days.
Confidence isn’t the absence of nerves. It’s moving forward with the nerves still riding along. Mili told me twice she didn’t feel ready. I wasn’t ready to let her go either. We did it anyway, not because the fear went away, but because we stopped waiting for it to.
Readiness was never actually the requirement. Willingness was.
Your Own Launching Pad
That’s the part I want you to sit with, whatever your launching pad looks like right now.
Maybe it’s a role you were offered and immediately started talking yourself out of. Maybe it’s a conversation you’ve rehearsed in the shower for three weeks and still haven’t had. Maybe it’s a goal you keep telling yourself you’re not quite qualified for yet.
Six move-in days have taught me this: you don’t need to feel ready. You need to be willing to take the step while your stomach’s still in knots.
One Empty Bedroom at a Time
Mili is going to be just fine at American University. Not because she wasn’t scared. Because she went anyway.
And my son, the one carrying boxes and making the Ace Hardware run with me, is proof of exactly where that willingness leads. I dropped him off alone once, unsure of everything. Now he’s steady enough to show up for his mom and his little sister on one of the harder days of my parenting life.
That’s the lesson. I’ve learned it five times before, and I’m learning it again this week, one empty bedroom at a time. The launching pad doesn’t wait for anyone to feel ready. It just asks if you’re willing to go.
If this is a season where you’re trying to move forward without feeling ready, REAL Confidence: A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable walks through exactly how to do that. You can find it at realconfidencebook.com.
