Goodbyes

It's been difficult few days.
My son left today, to head back to college. I have been dreading it. In a way, it seems strange that it's worse this year than last, when his absence was new. In another way it makes perfect sense. I have opened up to so much more of my own emotions in the last year, that I seem to feel everything  intensely and I don't yet know what to do with it all. I never dealt with stuff like this before. I used to dissociate and leave and come back when it was over...

I don't know what to do when I feel like this. I hide, distract myself, and take way too much Ativan and Xanax for my liking. I had them lined up on my nightstand last night, took one, then the other, then the first again, until I finally fell asleep. I know it's too much, and I knew it then, but I just didn't care. I wanted to make this pain go away.

We bring children into the world, small and helpless and perfect. We work so hard to bring them to the point where they are strong and can take care of themselves, and to keep a little bit of that perfection there - even if we're the only ones who can still see it. Then - it's time for them to go out into the world, away, on their own and I selfishly want them back. I want my little ones back where I can hold them and play with them and tuck them in at night. I want one kiss to make it all better. I want to hear that laughter when I tickle them. I want to bundle them up in a towel after a bath and feel them relax against me.

and it seems as if I'm not even supposed to want it because what is happening is right and good and exactly what is supposed to happen.

I don't know how people do it and yet, here I am, doing it.