…to Buffalo. Mark will hold down the fort here at home while I fly off at dark-thirty in the morning to fetch my girl, Eli. She’s coming home either for good or for a good while. College may lure her away after Christmas.
She’s not ready to make nice, ain’t ready to back down…oops, Dixie Chick moment. She’s not ready to talk yet and I don’t plan on pushing it. The condensed version is that she and Riksh are parting ways for myriad reasons. It’s amicable. It’s sad. It’s the only way that both of them stand a snowball’s chance of getting their S-H and I-T together and so, she’s coming home.
They planned on making the trip together and him flying back but when I offered to fly up and drive home with her (as a reasonable alternative to a thousand miles of tears and regret), she decided it was the best plan. What was I thinking? I have a massive and agonizing toothache/jaw ache and can’t get to the dentist before I go. Thanks to my step-mom’s private pharmacy, I don’t think I’ll care…that and the 2 free liquor drink coupons I got with my plane tickets. I’ll be drunk happy by the time I arrive in Buffalo at 10:15 am. Good thing Eli can drive.
It’s a weird moment for me, as a mother. She left home a year and a half ago a new high school graduate, all promise and tears and still my kid. My child. Tomorrow the person I’ll hit the road with will be my daughter but now she’s officially grown. A Woman. Full-fledged, capable, strong…exactly the person I always hoped she would be … she now is.
