A Good Job

I still miss my daughter with a slowly subsiding ache; the cats and I peer at each other in the shaded house and wonder if someone will come to rescue us from this unfamiliar situation. I tend not to follow little Blackjack when he hides in Aden's room, but I can at least step through the doorway without tears. It felt heroic to support Aden in her decision to stay at school through the long Labor Day weekend, I told her it was good to "put down roots" while inside a voice was shrieking, "come home!"

My neighbor and I exchanged notes on the subject of departing children. Bonnie said "Everyone tells you that you did a good job, and that's why they can leave successfully, but what if you didn't mean to do such a good job? Maybe I should have screwed up more along the way!"  The mix of emotions is wilder than a unicorn frappuccino. Aden is rocking her first two weeks, happy and engaged and meeting all the people. She's doing so much better than I did in my first two weeks that I am proud, amazed, and a teensy bit jealous.  I eagerly await her snapchats and stay up much later than I planned to take her calls.

My wheels are still spinning as I try to work out a job that I can do from home that will swell my pocketbook while not adding stress or fatigue to my life. I have to drive Daniel to activities most evenings when Rob's out of town, so early morning work is not ideal, work during school hours only is hard to come by, and my introverted tendencies make me reluctant to do anything with phones, customer service, marketing, or pitching myself. You can see the difficulty.  But I keep praying and hoping that the right thing will drop into my lap(top) at the right time. Have to keep the mental wheels turning productively so they don't stop or go off the rails worrying about things that are out of my control - like a college-age daughter.