GROWING UP

I remember thinking that I would be changing, soaking, rinsing, washing diapers forever. I couldn't see the end of the tunnel or even a hint of the light through my ever-fatigued eyes. I spread four daughters over thirteen years and, though in hindsight that wasn't the wisest of decisions, it was fruitless to reconsider because there was no going back for a do-over.
I remember picking up shoes: barn shoes, play shoes, dress shoes, school shoes, endless shoes and silently wishing that fewer feet lived in my home (though I wouldn't have traded a single pair of those precious feet). I remember lunches and homework and last minute science projects and collecting leaves with a flashlight and typing up essays in the wee hours of the morning while correcting grammar and spelling and trying hard not to sound too much like a mother. I remember four heads of long hair of which a few succumbed to the ever-dreaded headlice. And I remember wondering if motherhood would be the end of me, my demise, my Achilles heel so to speak.
But here I am, delivering my third daughter to college in Thunder Bay next week. She has mono with a helpful dose of liver stress. She is packing and putting up a brave face and trying hard to look excited about this next adventure called her life. And I am feeling unbelievable grief. When I put myself in her shoes I feel like rubbing my hands together with excitement, imagining all the possibilities in her life, this fresh start, this discovering who she really is and who she wants to be. But there are moments when I wonder who I will be without her. She is the soft place in my life that I go to lick my wounds, to look into the most sensitive eyes that exist anywhere on earth. She is privately strong and quietly fierce and I hope she sees that side of herself when she looks in the bathroom mirror that will no longer be down the hall from my bedroom.
I've had a headache for four days and no matter how much ibuprofen I take, it just won't go away. The headache is called being someone's mother, not wanting to let go when I know I must, not wanting to cry when I know I can't help it, not wanting to beg for more days when I don't have any left in the bank, no more chances to do a better job, no more opportunities to make sure you've taught her everything she needs to know about herself and about the world.
How will I drive away and leave her in a city that is more than a sixteen hour drive away? How will I keep from crawling into her bed each night and sobbing into her pillow because I need to hear her voice and drag my fingers through her hair?
I will do it, because I am a mom and I've done it before and survived. It just worries me that this could be the one time, the one heartache that does me in. It's not good-bye, it's just ... I'll see you later. But it will never be the same. It was never supposed to be. It's called ... growing up. Me growing up, not Laurie. She's already done that.