another year

who am I without her

My daughter was home all summer and it mostly healed me. But she’s back to school and now I’m going to die again. Most likely. Hard to imagine not. I’m not sad she’s leaving. Not really. Not for her by any means. Everything that is happening for her right now is just right. It thrills me. All I’ve ever wanted for her is something close to the rightness of how this feels. It’s happening. She’s doing it.

I’m not even sad for myself. I’m just worried that I won’t feel like myself again until she’s back because I haven’t yet really found who I am with her gone. Not yet. Not quite. That sounds like a sad, overwrought trope when I spell it out but she has always been my becoming, my way home to the truest version of myself. The part of me that was born when she was born was also the part of me that was always waiting to break through to daylight. The mom inside the meg. Waiting to hatch.

I drove her over the big mountains of New Hampshire and landed her back in her small (so big!) city by the sea. We chatted for most of the drive and when we didn’t chat we listened to an episode of Radio Lab that she loves. What is the most striking about time with Maple is how capable she is of giving all of herself to the moment. When she is with you, she is nowhere else. Her presence is paramount. It’s part of what makes her such an incredible artist and it’s part of why she needs to power down so hard once her battery is low. But time with her is complete magic when I give myself to it. I wish I could have understood that more when she was little. The way her flow can consume the space and attention in the most beautiful and complete way. I have gotten better at joining her there over the past few years and I think that more than anything is what has grown this strong bond I cannot believe I am lucky enough to share with this person.

Now I am home again and trying not to feel the space she has left behind. Impossible. We could never pretend to be a family of four ever again. We are five. Even with the gap. She’s out in the wild and I will try to ignore it for a bit. I keep walking over a stitch marker she dropped at the front door on her way out. I bet I can step over it for a day or maybe even a week more before anyone picks it up. It will most likely be me anyway.

Last year we preserved her room like a mausoleum, still and awaiting her return at breaks and holidays. This year we will slowly begin to deconstruct her space and make an alternate for her so that we can move Freddy out of his closet nook and into a great big room of his own. His now. No longer hers. This is the right move. I know because she tells us so, even if I can feel the swell of bile inside when I consider the activity of making it so for more than a moment or two. I will push through. But not quite yet.