partly

Tomorrow, for the first time in six years, I will go to work without my daughter, for she will be going to school in the opposite part of town. She will no longer be just two blocks down from me, a quick run away.

I didn't expect this wave of emotion, this sadness over a new grade, a new school. I'm not the melancholy type, I don't mark milestone with tears. I hardly mark them with pictures. I'm pragmatic, maybe too much so, but I don't have a problem with change or growth or new adventures.

I didn't feel that this was a time of mourning... at time of letting go. And yet, it is so.

There is moment in life, a critical turning point in all our lives when it's obvious things have irrevocably changed. When its painfully apparent that life is that journey, that it moves forward and all that is left behind, is just that, left behind.

It is much too early to be missing the things I am. Myr is an amazing person and I have great faith that she will do well in whatever grade or school she is in. I covet that she enjoys spending time with me, that she truly is interested in the things I like. She chooses to do things with me, willingly and happily.

I just miss that I will not have that 30 minutes of conversation in the morning when I am fighting to prepare for school. That distracting chatter about friends and plans and feelings. And that 30 minutes after school will be so long without a friendly hello and the non-stop review of her day. Instead there will be another hour of her life without me in it, another hour of my life without my little girl to give me that fresh look, that unconditional support, that pleasurable company.

The cynic in me points out that is slightly melodramatic, after all I still have her with me almost all the time. From the moment we wake up 'til she climbs into bed odds are strong that we are together unless we happen to be at different schools. And for six indescribably satisfying years I have been able to extend that togetherness to the time when I was working but she still didn't need to be in school. She's not gone, she's not even that much further away. I know just how lucky I have been... How blessed I am.

Still -- this, this is the portent, the distant ringing of hurricane bells, the slight hint of rain in the wind. The storm is coming. I'm just not sure how to prepare to survive it.