Five Weeks

I mean, counting down isn’t good for anyone. I know that. It’s like googling a medical condition. Everyone says it’s a bad idea, but I do it anyway. More knowledge is better than less.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

But there are five weeks left until Jessie moves out, and I’m… wordless. I don’t have words. Everything is huge, the pride, the gratitude, and the impending sense that I’m going to be losing daily contact with my first baby and I don’t know what my life looks like without her here every day.

I imagine it. And its lovely. I mean, I’m going to miss her the way I’d miss my right arm, but I still have Sam and Julianna home with me. I have a husband I love, a slightly insane dog, a hamster with psychotic escape tendencies and a fish named Squish. Everything will settle in – she’ll text me, I’ll get busy with the kids, the dog – it’ll be fine.

It’s a new stage, and there’s a part of me that’s looking forward to it. I focus on that. There is still a LOT about my life that’s lovely and exciting and rewarding. But my baby. My little baby girl who I brought home eighteen years, four months and six days ago, the one who’s been at my side ever since.

Five weeks.