We dropped Monkey Girl off at college today.
When I started this blog, Monkey Girl looked like this:
Needless to say, she doesn’t look like that anymore.
She’s 18 and grown and as of today, gone.
Not for good, obviously, but if you’ve gone to college yourself, you know that, while you will come home again, it will never quite be the same.
I miss her.
I went to put a dish in the dishwasher and found that it was full of clean dishes and immediately called out for her to empty it, because that’s been her job for the past ten years. But she’s not here tonight.
I miss the way she would call out “Marco!” when she would get home from work or school to find out where I was in the house. Or, she’d yell it when we were at the store and got separated. I’d yell back “Polo!” and she’d come and find me.
I walked by her room on her way to mine, this afternoon, and realized she had left her light and her fan on. I turned them off and smelled the strawberry scent of the air that is pure Monkey Girl and wondered how long before that scent goes away.
I know that, tonight, she won’t be coming in to lay on my bed when she comes home from work or hanging out with her friends and updating me on her day.
I just miss her presence, tonight.
And I know it will get easier.
I’ll always miss her when she isn’t here, but it won’t always ache.
She’s gonna love college. She is going to make friends and have fun and learn and grow and be independent and is going to do everything that her father and I have raised her to do.
She has already texted that she had made some friends and was enjoying their company and having a good time, and that made me so, so happy to hear.
It’s going to be fine. I’m going to be fine. She’s already fine.
I know I’m being melancholy and dramatic.
But tonight, I’m gonna wallow a little.
Because she was my first baby.
And I miss her.
