Thanks, Anita, for your kind words and suggestions.  Though this broken heart of mine has taken the wind out of my sails (at least temporarily) and I’m not in a particularly satisfying marriage, I know that my problems in the scheme of things are not that big.  I do have a lot to be grateful for, and in the end my problems are really first world problems.

My daughter does have a couple of friends from high school that she is friends with.  However, these friendships are relatively new, as she didn’t get close to these friends until about a year and a half ago when her friendships with her longtime friends (since elementary school) ended.  Sadly, she got her feelings hurt and rather than communicate with her friends, she just stopped talking to them, even though they tried to apologize and make amends.  She does feel things very strongly but keeps these feelings very private, which concerns me since it isn’t healthy.  She also puts a lot of pressure on herself to succeed and tends to have unrealistic expectations.  For instance, she was convinced she had to get above a 1500 SAT score if she wanted to get into a decent college because “everybody else does,” which is absolutely not true.  So, even though I try to help her have more realistic expectations, I am worried how she will do her first year.  Fortunately, she is only going to school a couple of hours away, but because she isn’t good about communicating when she’s upset and I can’t see her behavior while she away, it will be harder to figure out how well she is faring.

I have suggested she look into clubs to join since they are a great way to meet people.  I hope she will find 2 or 3 good friends to hang out with in college.  She seems to do better in these smaller groups.  We will see how it goes.

Thanks for listening.

Sadiya