And So It Begins...

I'm sitting here fighting tears.  My heart is in my throat.  I feel like there's not enough air in the room.  I can't get a deep enough breath.  I just want to start sobbing.  You know, just get it out.  But my make-up will run and I'm at work.  I should be working, not weeping over something as predictable and silly as this.

I just realized I've got practically no time left.  No, nothing as dramatic as my health or anyone else's.  Nothing dramatic at all.  It's just my little girl ... my baby ... grew up.  Somehow in one fell and extremely sudden swoop she's happy away from me - all day!  Yesterday was her first day at camp - at the Arts Camp that Laura runs - and she loved it.  No, she didn't just love it - she LOVED it.  She loved it so much she put herself early to bed last night and got herself up early this morning to be sure she got there on time.  She voiced her concern, as we got ourselves dressed and ready, that I wouldn't have a full day's worth of work to do today and might come pick her up early.   

With this, I know she can handle school in the fall.  We are on a (long) waiting list for our first pick, which is a 3 hour Kindergarten, so I called up our second choice - a full day deal.  They were fine with me registering her for the fall.  "When do classes begin?" I asked.  "August 29th."  and with that, my stomach twisted and the tears began winning the battle.

How many times have I complained that I can't just go on a run?  Or read the newspaper?  Or watch a movie before midnight?  Or had the time to go window shopping?  How many times have I lamented the lack of "me time?"  Soon, I'll have more "me time" than "me" will know what to do with.  Granted, while she's at school, I will most likely be working and ... with things topsy turvey at work too, who knows if that'll be from home or in-person ... but STILL.  I've got 6 Thursdays left with her this summer (my weekday off).  SIX!!!  (No, no, no, don't you cry Katie...)  Well, there are actually eight left but she's in camp for two more weeks in August and I know she won't let me renegotiate that deal.  So, six.

I have two mini vacations I want to take with her and now I have to figure out how to jam them in to the few weeks I have left before 'real life' takes over.  The money that I don't have seems less important now... the time and attention seems to be weighing over the budgetary restrictions.

I suppose one could think I'm being melodramatic but there's no way I'll give anyone that.  Of course this isn't my first time at this.  I'm no rookie here.  I can tell you with authority that while life can move at a snail's pace for me, it careens by on a SR-71 Blackbird for the kids.  Tim and Cheyanne grew up in - oh, I don't know - two or three months?

And while I can also tell you there's not an age I didn't love and there hasn't been a moment in time when I'd have traded their current age with one prior (no, Chey, not even at 9)... the growing up of this particular child is really hard to take.  There's no chance for another.  This is it.  The finale.  I don't get my miracle again ten years from now.  When she grows up and leaves the nest, it will be empty.  It will be very, very empty.

On Tim's graduation night, my 38th birthday coincidentally, I couldn't sleep.  I ended up sobbing on the couch at some ridiculous o'clock like two or such.  It was Cheyanne that came down to console me that night.  It was a moment so similar to this one.  "It's about to be over."  I sobbed to my (now) eldest daughter.  "I know you haven't even graduated yet, but it goes so freaking fast and it's going to be over in no time.  What am I supposed to do with myself then?"  I asked her sort of hypothetically.  She assured me that no one was going anywhere, that I'd still be mom, that we'd still be a family, that no family was as closely knit as ours.  "Don't worry Mom" she said.  "It's going to be fine."

I know she was right.  Even though God smiled on my pathetic face and gave me Dia, in no way have my precious first two moved on away from me.  They are still very much in my daily life.  Everything is OK just as Chey predicted.

Still.  Even though I have a few minutes before I have to figure out what I'm supposed to do with myself once Dia is grown, the fact of the matter is I don't want to do anything else.  I really like being a mom.  I like playing Polly Pockets with pirates and dinosaurs (all at once).  I like reading stories and cuddling on the couch watching movies I don't even necessarily like.  I love watching her, still awkward and tentative, taking a step further every day in swim class.  I love the funny way she runs and how she makes me make up the most insane stories (on the way to camp today she hit me with "tell me a story about an egg (with a chick inside), a salmon and a bacon fish").  I love every part of this part of life and I don't look forward to it's end.

Dr Seuss (I think) said "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."  I'll try doc, but I'm not promising anything.