08/16/05 -- Tuesday

I can't believe summer is drawing to a close! Where did it go? What did we do with it? For that matter... where'd the last five years go? My little girl starts Kindergarten in THREE DAYS!! Should I not be having a crisis of indefinite proportions? Aside from all the flurry of making sure I have uniforms that fit & the supplies the school requires, I feel as though I really ought to sit down somewhere & have a good cry... not only to mourn all the moments we've missed in the hustle of our lives, but to memorialize all the beautiful ones we have had that I'll carry in my memory until my brain starts losing bits. It makes me infinitely sad that I will stand at the (theoretical) bus stop by myself later this week to watch her go off to begin this new life. 'Cause it really is a new life. It is just now... tonight... really beginning to hit me: the enormity of this change for us. For her. She's so too little to really know it.. feel it... understand it. I know someday when she's a mother, she'll experience it too. That this is something every mother... every (involved) parent experiences. Growing pains! I have other parental friends who have gone through this... who empathize and sympathize, of course. 's not the same, though.. their love. Welcome as it is, this is one of those moments no parent should have to do alone. God set the system up for creation to require two people for a friggin' reason! This is one of those moments that leave me furious - livid, simmering, boiling mad that I will do it just that: alone. But aside from that, it is also one of those moments in parenthood that leave me in utter awe of their simplicity.. their inevitability. The beauty and the pain - the beginning of letting go as tiny wings unfurl just a bit more. It aches, and tears are rolling down my face... but oh, it will be beautiful to see her fly.