So there she goes again. Off to school but like a full time job. Five full days a week away from home, her brother, her pets.... and me! Oh, I'm holding together by a thread. I've stayed busy by cleaning and baking and entertaining Thatcher to a miniscule degree of what he's used to. Just last night Tessa said, "Thatcher's my best friend in the world! He does everything I tell him to!". Hmm. Sweet, telling and a little scary that it's her idea of what it means to be a best friend. They are though. They rough house and chase, pretend, race, clobber, create and bath together. They are inseperable.
Until school just seperated them. Part of me feels evil for it. Like I've disrupted a beautiful, healthy relationship by sending her off to the unknown world of cliques and secrets, tattletales and bullies. There are parts of that school world I hate. Parts that I feel like can really destroy a person's self esteem. But there's also the beauty of meeting difference. A strange new world of people with different backgrounds, different sounding names, different ways of playing. Who knows what she'll pick up from it, hopefully it will be good things like patience and the true qualities of a great friendship. Qualities no one could ever teach her by telling because they'll be specific to her.
I am scared to death. Scared of losing her a little bit more by the minute but so proud that she really wanted to go today. I know she was nervous, I didn't want her to mask it but I wanted to emphasize the excitement not the scary nature of it all. And so, when she woke up with a smile on her face, her eyes still closed and said softly, "it's a school day" I just smiled. Not a tear in my eyes so happy for her to want to know life outside of me. It's how I'll imagine I'll feel if she wants to travel far away someday. So excited, so nervous but mostly so proud of whoever she's becoming. Still, I had Jason drop her off so I didn't lose it completely. Ah well, there's only an hour and fourty six minutes to go to pick her up. Thatcher is sleeping, my second press of coffee has steeped, there are projects to be done, plenty of ways of distracting myself ahead. She'll be fine, she's Tessa for goodness sake.