I Am Old

I feel old. My thoughts are old. I feel sick. And tired.

And my daughter moved out yesterday.

Not my older daughter. She's 21years old and getting married in August, so I have time to plan, to pack her things with her, to get used to the idea that it's going to be a lot quieter around here, to notice all the things that she does now that will leave a hole when she's gone and to prepare for that feeling. We will celebrate her moving out with parties and a grand celebration of a small wedding with friends and family at the church's building where her father and her grandmother grew up. Sunflowers and lace. And joy. And a calm assurance.

I know I'll hear from her after the honeymoon, and she'll share stories of the fun, and the trouble, they have making their new house a home. A family.

My younger daughter left yesterday. She packed her backpack for school with more things than usual, and I asked her about it. She said it was books for school. She's in art, photography and drama. I asked her, "what books?" She said something about a project for photography class. Her dad drove her to school and dropped her off. I started off my day with our littlest girl's home school studies.

Then we got a jpeg of a letter typed out to us. She was saying goodbye in the letter. Our house was toxic and she needed someplace safe and healthy. She wasn't who she had pretended to be with us.

She lied to us for years.

I admit, I'm stupid sometimes. I gave her so many chances to tell me. I asked her straight out sometimes, and she straight up lied to me. I knew she was lying. I nudged and waited, and she wouldn't come out and just tell me what she was thinking. So she lied and hid and stayed on her phone texting and watching and never sharing.

And then a jpeg of a typed letter texted to us while she was at school, saying goodbye. Saying she was not coming home. Saying she was going to be legally changing her name. Signing the letter with the words, "your child," and her name with the parenthetical "for now" attached.

And for over 24 hours now we've all gone through the "steps" of grieving. Shock. Anger. Denial. Fear. Sadness. A quiet passes through and is suddenly torn apart when I wash HER cup. Her little sister asks again if she's coming back.


I guess she and the counselors at school decided that it was better this way. She apologized that it "had" to be this way.




Every paragraph break here is a cry break. I keep thinking it's like when my Dad passed away, only worse. I knew he was leaving. I knew he was right with God.






I'm going to be 51 years old tomorrow.  And I feel so old.