Sixty Some Days

My daughter "goes back to her Dad's this weekend."

A decade later, these words still jolt me.

A couple of years ago, she decided that she no longer wanted to do this every other week thing and she switched to an every two months schedule. The truth is, I cannot begin to know what it's like to switch home every other week. As much as I have strived and mostly succeeded to free my life from guilt in general, this one still tugs at me.

But I digress.

She is going back to her Dad's this weekend.

And coming back in two months.

And leaving again two months later.

Possibly for good.

She is a senior and has made it clear that she wants to move away (as in Europe kind of away) not too long after graduation.

Which I understand and support.

But this, technically, leaves only Sixty Some Days of ... the way things are.

Sixty Some Days of her unbelievably messy bedroom (no matter how many times she cleans it) and her borrowing my makeup (or me hers) and her creative baking and ... well ... her.

And I know, somewhere in a wise part of me that she and I are just turning a page and that  there are many more for us to write together. I look forward to her being an adult with me and I look forward to watching her spread her wings and fly and try on new things and (eventually) maybe even make a couple of babies for me to kiss and hold and smell.

But today, I am feeling a sense of loss.