Good Day/ Bad Day. One more off the nest.

My eyes burn, my chest feels tight, it is hard to get a deep breath. I feel dull and foggy. I took quite a blow today.
My Motherhood hurts.

And, it hurts because my Motherhood is this large chunk of my heart, and brain, and soul...as well as my most important job. The grand irony of the job, 18 years, so far,  has been loving and encouraging my child to be responsible, and kind, and thoughtful but smart, curious and confident, strongly individual without being divisive- ready to be an amazing human- and in doing my job, the job no longer exists as it did when I took it. I haven't exactly been fired... maybe laid off.

My Middlest is no longer of the nest. She is in College now.
And, she moved out. I mean, she packed up the stuff she wanted to take, packed up the rest of the stuff in her room, put it in storage, converted her room into a guest room and just like that... she's gone. 2 birds flown the coop, and I have a new guest room.

 So, I guess I should congratulate myself on successfully taking part in raising someone I will miss everyday. My girls have been too easy on me. They have been kind to me right through their teenage years, when I think that had they been salty, I could suffer less as they fly away.

 So, I'm gonna miss having this person around. By enlarging her world, mine feels a bit emptier and diminished. For those who get to share her now, you're lucky ducks, chuffed as chickens. And I did one thing right that I can think of, even this moment when I feel pretty sad- I got my photographer friend, Eileen Nixon, to take pictures of Middlest, just as she did of Eldest. Good plan, it helps on days like today.


I will go nurse my Motherhood, even though it can't ever heal. This job that is joy and a pain that started connecting nerve by nerve, cell by cell, day after day from the moment each of my children was born. A pain that got closer to arriving with each step, grade, achievement, lost tooth and new shoe size. And even though I doubted, a lot, that I was doing this job well, I think I did it as well as I could at the moment. I made mistakes I cannot forget (there was yelling) and I hope there were times I excelled. But this part of me, my Motherhood, has changed along with the days. And it will not mend into what it was yesterday, no more than you can put back that lost tooth or still find acceptance with a spoon of strained peas.
I'm to find solace in sending Middlest off to College as my job, well done.
Yes, well. I know it isn't done, just different now. But I miss it.


I love you, G.G.
Go get 'em.
Mom