Daughter Moving Out!!!!

Yes, Jenn is moving out, packing up, vacating the premises, stepping away from the vehicle. Most of her stuff is now in her new place or in her car (and some in mine) to be transported to the new place tomorrow. She is moving in with her girlfriend, into a place in Guerneville, two minutes from where she works. It's good. I hope it last forever, as I have said before.

But as happy as I am for her, I am a little sad for me. Who would have predicted this predicament?  As anyone who knows me would attest, my relationship with my daughter has always been contentious.  (Her relationships with EVERYONE have always been contentious, let's be clear there. I just started the above mentioned relationship earlier than everyone else, along with her father.)  The past two years have been...... good and bad.  The bad came first, lots of yelling, judgement calls, recriminations.  The good came later, after about 6 months when we both let out a deep sigh, stopped being in each other's face and way and just got on with our own respective lives. The last year has been good. Jenn has a job she loves (and pretends to sometimes hate) and is thus finally doing what she always wanted to do: cook for other people. (Channeling Gramma Close, who also always loved to cook for others and who did so flawlessly.)  I have a job that I am good at and our schedules synched well: we were not home at the same time much so when we were, it was nice.

And now, once again, she is moving on. Jenn has left home several times. Some times it was great, almost like "Just get the f*** out of here, go, just go!" and sometimes it was more like "Oh, be careful out there.  Be safe and call me when you arrive."  This time it is more like "It's the right time, with the right person, and I hope it lasts for a long time."  But it's still difficult. She is still my daughter, I still worry about her life and her loves and her heart, and she still breaks my heart, but much more gently now.

Ah, the vagaries of life. The things we cannot predict, the things we cannot plan. We are constantly thrown off our game by these things, these wild pitched balls, these tumbles over loose sand where we land on our asses and swear we are not hurt, we are fine. We might shed a few tears but no one sees them. And it's all because of love.

At the funeral I went to last week the priest talked about love, that love is the only thing that matters, love will eventually save the world, save us, save everyone. It was a good sermon (better than the one where they tell us how great the person was that died, a person they never even met) and food for thought.  Love is, in the end, one thing that does matter most.  That and kindness.

Ah, that's all for now. Just finished a pizza and beer dinner with Jenn and Dar and some friends, Jenn's last night sleeping here. It's a hot night, we sat outside and it was lovely.  She is a lovely woman. I will miss her. Yes, she is just a short drive down River Road, but still......

xo