Hurting Heart

I have been in a funk. It has been mystifying to me. And it has been a big funk - akin to the funk when I first left Erin's dad and I only wanted to sleep all the time. There is this big, unavoidable thing happening in my life and I can't stop it - shouldn't stop it, anyways. Erin is moving to Montreal to attend LaSalle's Fashion Design program. It is only weeks away now. That's so far away it is doubtful she will be home for Christmas or even next summer. My baby. My piece of my heart. I hate to think of life going on - my life and her life - going on so far apart. Some part of me cries, "what if I never see her again? What if something happens to her? How would I find out?"

She's excited and scared as she should be. And she has it all worked out. A month from now she will be living in Montreal. They are leaving August 9th. Everything piled into her car. I can scarcely bare it. Of course it is inevitable as soon as they start to grow within us - one day they will leave. It was hard enough when she moved to her own apartment but to think of her across the country, weighs on me like a lead heart. Of course I am happy for her, excited for her and so proud of her for making her dreams come true. But for me.... to think of her not being embedded in the context of my life....

Dean would say that I am being dramatic. I will be able to phone her whenever I want, right? We'll e-mail.... But still she will be on the other side of the continent. She won't be dropping by to bug me by doing her laundry after 10pm at night. She won't be here for supper every now and then. She won't be critisizing my clothing. She'll be gone.

And it all swims before me. Her birth, her babyhood. Her at 2, riding a tricycle, getting on the bus to go to kindergarten (while I drove to meet her at the other end), homeschooling hours spent together. Her amazing mind. Her incredible voice. She always sang - she used to sing herself to sleep in her crib. Then I remember when she found her power in her voice. Her talented, creative ways. My wonderful, beautiful daughter. All those moments I swore to myself to never forget - I see them. The way she used to say 'conchterble' for comfortable and the way I would get her to cheer for me when I got good grades at UVic. The way she wouldn't let me put her down when she was a baby and I learned how to vacuum with the snugli or the back pack on. Back and forth my memory goes through our life together. It is every mother's pain, this pain. Of course I brought her into this world to grow to be her own person. This is a tearing of my soul as surely as her birth was a trauma to my body. And not a trauma I would stop but I grieve. Beyond words. How do you say that? I want her to grow up and be her own person but I am so sad that she is? Of course I would be more worried if she wasn't.