A Travelin' She'll Go

My Girl, my big, 22 yo, girl is leaving for a study abroad in a less than two weeks. Every time I think about it my stomach hurts. She'll be gone for four long months. We've never been separated for more than a few weeks AND she'll be in a different country...without her mother!

This will be a grand adventure. It's a chance of a lifetime. The perfect opportunity.

I'm excited for her. I truly am. It's just that, well, I'm going to miss her.

We are close, she and I. 

While she's studying and traveling and meeting new people, I'll be holding down the fort and trying to keep Thing One and Two from killing me (or each other). It just isn't going to be the same.

Which is why this trip is so great for her. She will come home a different person with new experiences. It's a good test run for when she really leaves home for good and let's face it, at 22 yo, moving out is going to happen sooner, rather than later. 

The girls: Things One and Two and equally excited and sad. They've been made plenty of noise about spending time with her before she leaves. Of course, they have also pitched one of them moving into her room "temporarily". They are both a little jealous of Girl's boyfriend and other friends. They want to keep her to themselves....yes, even 16 yo wants her fair share of time.

Beloved is worried, in a manly sort of way. He worries about different things than I do. I worry about illness and her getting lost. He worries about terrorists and human trafficing. The boyfriend has tossed out the thought of traveling to see her during spring break as have a couple of her friends.

It's only four months.

Only four.

And I'll cry. I know I will. I cried when Boy was in Prague for a couple of weeks when he was 16. I cried when he was in India at Christmas time a few years ago. Oh yeah, I know the waterworks are coming.

Part of me doesn't want to go to the airport to see her off, because I know I'll be a mess and I don't want HER to be a mess. If I don't go, I'll just be a mess at home. Ugh.

It will be fine. She's going to have the adventure of a lifetime and have so many stories to tell. This is going to change her life and she'll never regret going.

As long as her mother survives :)