The Apartment

Tough mother – hah! Here comes the oxygen again.

So my one and only calls to tell me that she is getting an apartment for her junior year – a decision we discussed and which I fully support. As she is walking over to pick up the lease she mentions that it begins July 1^st – which means, ahhhhh, she will not be home for summer.

And there it is was again, that woosh as all the life force air is being sucked out of my very soul. She will not be home for summer. Not. Be. Home.

And soon THIS, this place where I live, will not be home, not for her. It will not be where she lives, ever again.

That is, of course, the plan, and it is wonderful – she is exhibiting planning and thinking and self-reliance and independence and all the critical skills that are essential to maturity and living in this world.

Drat.

And my heart silently, secretly breaks. Can’t help it. I just love her.

I get it – I understand what is going on;

Number one - I will miss her. Honestly, even though she is sort of in and out of the apartment in the summer her presence is like sighting a hummingbird – she flitters in, buzzes about and I get to enjoy the miracle. It’s brief but wondrous. Sometimes her friends accompany her and sometimes, with that kind of perfect serendipity that one can never plan, they linger and we have a conversation about the world, life, gender studies, boys, disability, justice or whether tomatoes are tasty – and it brings laughter, insight, a new perspective and a very special joy to the day. My spirit soars with life. Alas, the abundance of these moments is slowly ebbing and I deeply miss them. And now they will be fewer still.

Secondly knowing that my daughter is moving forward in her life throws all sorts of awareness into my own; what do I do for myself, where do I want to go next, what is meaningful to me, am I meaningful to others? It is also a recognition of the passage of time. I may not notice the changes in my own life so much, but when I see the ones in hers it brings me up short – who am I now? This is not to say that I don’t have my passions and my own work, but simply that my daughter is a big piece of my whole and when that piece changes shape it affects everything around it. Sort of like a brain injury…J

I do not begrudge her the opportunities to fly - and in fact I could not be prouder of them, yet…. suddenly I notice this hole in my heart – or at least what feels like a hole because in truth its really not. It’s really my heart expanding. It’s really about what it means to love – to have faith, to support, to trust for the sake of another.

When my daughter was born I said that it felt like someone had taken a vital organ out of my body and that it was now alive, connected still but apart from me. Over the years many of those life support systems have faded away, as expected, as needed – and yet, what remains, I believe, is that mysterious and strange force that will connect us no matter where in the world we both are.

So – you go girl, you go. The world is yours and I have your back.