things creep up

Things creep up. Before you know it, time has slipped past, years actually...and you find yourself sitting up late on the eve of your child's very last, last day of public school. It's amazing the things that can run across a person's mind on a night like this.

Of course, this isn't how I pictured things to be. Therein lies its own sadness. Not only is life changing and moving forward for her, but it is for me as well. And on the cusp of this new phase in her life....I find myself a little frantic about my own. That in and of itself is something I didn't expect or plan or envision for this time.

This is all very surreal...I don't feel engaged in the process...it seems much more like I am reacting to the events rather than cherishing them or experiencing them to the fullest. It feels very much like life is spinning a little out of control around me....and the more I fight to keep it upright, the more it tilts and leans. Tonight I am finding myself wanting more than anything to put on the brakes...and experience the next few days in slow motion...to seer them into my memory....

Knowing that raising a responsible, albeit slightly "blonde" daughter has been a huge part of my life for the last 17 years, I am sitting here tonight wondering, What next? Somehow I know my role as her parent is never going to be over...but now things change a bit. I am a little fearful that in the next phase I won't do so well with the letting go part. The part where I trust what has been taught and modeled...the part where I watch as she grows into maturity, praying all the while that somehow she has "caught" some of the good stuff, amidst a sea of bad....

Tonight I have found myself feeling more alone than I have ever been....while she and I sat on the couch and talked and cried and remembered lots of stuff together.....tomorrow and in the days ahead she will be remembering lots of that stuff with her friends....but tonight was just for us....and sitting here now, I remember just exactly when I felt like this for the first time with her. It was the night she was born. After her dad had left the hospital, the nurses had done their rounds...and it was just the two of us there in the room...her snuggled up, in my arms, dozing in and out....and crying some too...I felt a little alone and uncertain on that night too....unsure of what lay ahead for us....on that night...I didn't even see this one coming!