This previous Friday evening, my ex-husband came to pick up our daughter for a visit; he's unable to do that very often, due to his schedule (he owns his own business). While I was happy he was able to spend time with her, what he said to me as they were leaving put me into an all-too-familiar, semi-panic: "I'll bring her home Monday morning".
I say 'all-too-familiar' because this same feeling has come over me since the very beginnings of being a mother. When my children leave the house, for whatever reason, I miss them TERRIBLY. I feel as if someone's taken off one of my limbs. I should have been able to get over this with my daughter by now, as her father and I have been divorced for a little over 16 years and she's not a baby anymore. That seems to make no difference to my brain; she's still going away from me each time she leaves.
I remember when she was much younger, it was a lot worse for me. I'd go into these pathetic crying jags as she was leaving with her father, as if I'd never see her again. Mind you, he's a good dad; it's never been a matter of fearing for her safety in ANY way. I would absolutely fall apart, which I'm sure irritated the shit out of my ex.
I've since had a son, whose older (step)brother will be coming to pick him up and take him to Oregon for about a month, prior to school starting again. That same panic is setting in. I won't be able to cope; this I know about myself. I'll want phone calls a few times a day, and I'll want the luxury that I couldn't ask for with my daughter's visits with her father: instant messaging and webcam time. I'm going to annoy him and his fiance to such a degree that I'll be quite surprised if they don't hate me by the time they return little brother back home.
Too soon, my daughter will want to "get the hell outta Dodge", as I did at her age, and be off on her own. Just the thought of THINKING about that paralyzes me.
It's not that I think she can't live without me around.....it's that I don't know if I can live without her just on the other side of her bedroom door. Her poor baby brother is gonna carry the brunt of my excessive neediness when she leaves.
They'll both be something without me, but I'm nothing without them.
