Like her brother before her, tomorrow morning my daughter will be going with her eighth-grade class to New York, D.C. and a few other stops on the eastern seaboard.
The wife and I will be getting up at 3a.m. to take her to the school, where she'll board the bus to the airport with her friends as she gives us a cursory wave goodbye and heads off on her Big Apple adventure.
Of course we're happy for the time she's going to have, the things she's going to learn and close friends she'll be even closer to by trip's end. What we're not happy about is the fact she'll be away from us for a week. Three-thousand miles away from us.
It's every parent's dilemma: how to let them go without worrying about them the second they're out of your sight. The answer of course, as any parent can tell you, is you can't.
In a book about her daughter, author Joan Didion said, "Once you have children, you're never unafraid again." As a parent there is the continuous loop of white noise, playing at a very low level in the back of your brain always wondering if your kids are alright.
I know my daughter will be fine back east and have the time of her life.
I also know I won't be fine until she's back home.
UPDATE: This was originally written in June. My daughter went on the trip, had a great time and returned safely to me. When she came down the escalator at the airport, she ran into my arms and held me so tight I thought she'd never let go. For my money, best way for both of us to end her trip.
