Hmmm, I think it gelled!

Soooooo long since I've blogged ... Soooooooooo much I want to blog about.  But where to start?  I don't know!   I feel so scattered -- I have so many things I want to do but I have been tired from traveling and that blasted cold (that went away COMPLETELY the moment I began traveling) and last night instead of going to bed and sleeping which I needed very badly, I sat up and played with all the pictures I've taken the past few weeks.

And that was after going out to dinner and then later meeting friends for a few beers and then watching my taped version of Gray's Anatomy!

I decided last night as I had to physically pull myself away from the computer, that I crave doing something creative now, and I was so happy last night after playing with pictures.  I wanted to blog, but I knew I was too tired for that.  The past week in Oklahoma left me disconnected from the cyberworld -- there was no wireless at the hotel and  no time, really, for it anyway.  I didn't miss it -- in fact, for the first time ever I was perfectly fine with it and even while at the airport coming home I had an opportunity to go online and I thought, nah, I'll be home soon enough.

I want to talk about Hallie's graduation and having a child move away.  I want to talk about travel, about being with 8 women and talking and delving into bits and pieces of your past history with them, I want to discuss what it felt like to me to be in one state, with its specific climate and landscape and what it feels like to be back in another.  I want to talk about a lot of things but nothing has settled in my head and experience has long since made me know that if it hasn't -- it won't!  By now something should have gelled -- and it has not.  I am rambling, searching for words to string together into sentences (and that kind of feels weird in itself!)

I have no flow right now because I've been so on the go!  I need to chill out, and stop worrying about my next trip (yesterday morning I woke up, took a kid to school then came home and started researching hotels in California -- as opposed to meditating or whatever!)  Then in the afternoon I had to drive back down to Manchester to take Maddie to a doctor's appointment, and found myself once again in uncomfortable chairs in a waiting room reading a magazine killing time.  Ick!

I can't decide if I like it being all crazy and busy -- or if I crave my more or less normal easy-paced existence!  I am trying to ascertain whether or not I am dealing with Hallie moving to Chicago or ignoring it!   She was home for a few days while I was away and when I did get home the other night, late late, we chatted for an hour or so, and then she left early the following morning.  We did begin to grasp at straws though -- trying to find a way to spend more time together by my saying I would drive her here or there or pick her up or whether or not there was a bus to New Jersey (where she is now, spending time with her boyfriend) ... until we both realized we were creating a lot of work to spend a few more hours together.  As Hallie said, we communicate very well with each other -- and there is no reason that will end.  So we stopped trying to reinvent the wheel and let it be and said our goodbyes.

It's just so much for her right now.  She and her roommates were holding on to each and every last moment as well -- probably not knowing as well as I that their relationships will never be the same.   It is unlikely that any of them will ever live together again -- and Hallie and her two original freshman roommates have been together for four years.  That is very unusual in itself and I suspect that for Hallie that break is harder than leaving us -- because she really has been doing that for four years as it is.

But good for her.  She is, from where I stand, going forth into the world with an amazing amount of grace and courage.  She is leaving behind her family, friends and boyfriend to live in a new city and begin a new job, and even though there is a support system out there in terms of cousins and an uncle, it's still a VERY BIG DEAL.

As I've tried to gauge my own reaction to this big life event, I keep going back to when Hallie was a junior and she went on Mountain Classroom through school.  It was the first time that I had to deal with a child being completely off my radar.  They were not permitted cell phones and since they were on the road, no one really knew where they were most of the time.  I found it to be maddening -- and I spent countless hours on the computer trying to track where they might be.  Then she would call and say that she had spent the last night on a frozen lake in Minnesota and earlier had gone up on a small plane (scary, Mom, it sounded old) to track wolves.  Just as I would begin to gather my wits to ask her what the future held, she would say she had to go, that everyone was lined up to use the pay phone and she couldn't hog it.

It was a long few months for me and I resented that I was forced to go incommunicado with my child in a world that was all about communicating.  This is stupid! I would cry out, but I worked through it, I explained to myself that this was just the beginning -- that the future held only more of the same -- many days strung together where I wouldn't know what she was up to or where she was.  For me it was like a crash course in letting your child fly solo from the nest for the first time -- but I got to have her back in it for a few more years, which I think makes this real and final nest-leaving a lot easier to take.  AND!  I can pick up the phone and call her anytime I want, or email her or text her -- and I am guaranteed a response within the day if not immediately.

There is only one way to let go.  To hold on would be to demand that she spend her last weekend here, with her family, instead of some else's family.  And I make myself feel better by pointing out to myself that I would never do that.  It's not about me -- it's about her.  She is trying to be with all the important people in her life as much as she can and while I am sure I could probably have woven a beautiful quilt of guilt and perceived responsibility and wrapped her up in it until she stayed longer, I've never done that with her.  And she has always wanted to come home and this latest parting has taken place on those same terms.

I can let go.

And so can she.

And that's okay.

And as I sit here crying, it feels so good.  I'm not keeping it inside -- I'm letting that go too, hopefully with grace and dignity.