What's it like to be 23 and starting a brand-new life? I'm unpacking a great deal of emotions as my child heads to the US

Can he actually be that old? Was I ever that young? A journey to clear out his student flat has actually restored so numerous memories

There's an accurate, if snide, thing I've seen online that reads "No parent on Facebook can believe their kid has turned any age", and yes, OK, not the "on Facebook" bit, but there is a rote astonishment at time passing that I in some cases slip into, considering my adult children. But, enable me, simply this once, a Facebook parent minute. My elder child turned 23 last month and we have actually just been to London to gather his things at the end of his degree. On the method, I realised I was 23 when I moved there myself.

You can't typically pre-emptively pinpoint parenting "lasts", but when you can, they're unusual and melancholy - even when they're not, objectively, things a person would pick to do again. This journey included (I hope) my last time standing, hips shrieking from the drive, texting "We're outside" as we waited on our kid to get up (my partner ended up tossing a ball at his bed room window). It was absolutely my last time removing my shoes amidst the overflowing bins of that sticky-floored trainee home, and hovering over the Trainspotting-esque toilet then deciding against drying my hands on any of the towels. It ended with the last trip along the M1 crushed between a restored chair, a duvet and an Ikea bag of pans threatening to behead me if we made an emergency stop. We were bringing his stuff "home" knowing that it won't be home for him in the same method once again: he's transferring to New york city this summertime. Maybe not for ever, but for years, not months.

To compound the Big Feelings, and the sense of the dizzying slippage of time, my partner and I used the journey to wander round Fitzrovia, where we shared our first flat back when I was 23. It's different however not unrecognisable: the health center has actually been destroyed but Tesco is flourishing; the Phones 4U where we purchased our first mobiles is gone; however the bank where we opened Isas when they were created, pleased with our new maturity, hangs on. Our block had actually acquired several Airbnb key safes however was otherwise the same. "It'll be baking up there," said my partner, looking up as the late afternoon sun struck the flat black roofing. I made him duplicate himself, since I have actually ended up being somewhat deaf this year, then we reminisced about the brutal summer heat (it's probably even worse now). We walked, explaining survivors: the notoriously low-cost pizza place, the tiny Italian sandwich shop, the DIY store where we stress bought a fan. Then we sat down for a sensible soda, since we were worn out and I was struck by an ultra site-specific memory of strolling through Percy Passage to meet him one night, having actually simply discovered I was pregnant with our now-23-year-old, taking pleasure in the last seconds of incredulous solo delight before sharing the news. Then another: shuffling along Goodge Street at dawn in labour, stopping outdoors Spaghetti House (still there) to ride out a contraction. Both our kids were born in this area - it changed my life like no other.

The place still felt familiar; what 23 seemed like is harder to gain access to. I was a mess, I believe: I had actually been ill and was incredibly narcissistic; I invested far too much time fretting about my weight. I spent little bit, if any, time fretting about the world, though. World-wise, things felt fine - "A brand-new dawn has broken, has it not?" Tony Blair had actually simply told us - and if they weren't, it definitely didn't seem like my issue.

There aren't many new dawn vibes for my child's generation as they enter adulthood. I'm uncertain we've provided much of a chance to invest a couple of narcissistic years concentrating on their own dramas, have we? We have actually gifted them more pushing matters: a collapsing environment, catastrophic financial inequality, a crappy jobs market and even the reemerging spectre of fascism and nuclear war (retro!). Plus, it's all inescapably fed into their faces 24/7 - not a function offered by a 1997 Phones 4U Motorola.

But I hope, nevertheless, that 23 can still be what it was for me: confusing but filled with possibility. An adventure. The ideal age to find yourself in a new city.