"I'm a Weepah"

Call it hormones.

Call it middle age.

(On second thought, don’t you DARE call it middle age.)

Maybe it’s winter, which is always rough for me (doesn’t help that it gets dark right after lunch—geesh! It’s like we live in Alaska . . . without all the beauty.).

I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been especially, shall we say, weepy.

I can’t get through a church service without dabbing at my eyes. I can’t watch television commercials without tearing up (all those poor people with medical issues and tax problems!). And don’t even get me started about watching the news . . . .

Yesterday I surprised myself, though, when my college girl went back to school. I drove her all of eight blocks back to the dorm in the late afternoon, pulled into the circular drive, and looked into those beautiful blue eyes. For some reason I felt like I needed some closure. (I’m big into closure, just ask my family.) So I turned to her and said, “It was a really great break, Kate. We loved having you home.” And then I cried. Just like a little baby, I wept.

Reminds me of that scene in “The Holiday” when Jude Law tells Cameron Diaz about his crying problem and he says, “I weep. I’m a weeper.” (Only in his gorgeous British accent he says “weepah.”) Yep, that’s me. A weeper.

So there I was, mind racing, realizing that half of her freshman year was already over and before I know it she’ll be a sophomore and before I know it again she’ll be halfway done with college and speeding quickly down the highway toward real adulthood. They grow up so fast. *sniff, sniff*

It’s not like Christmas break was perfect. Those three little angels aren’t exactly angels all the time. They don’t always get along. They don’t always even acknowledge each other’s existence as human beings. But they are sisters who love each other, and it’s always fun to have them all under one roof.

Which is, I guess, why I unexpectedly started to cry as I dropped my daughter at her dorm. (Of course, it could have been the huge tuition check I handed her with strict instructions to not-lose-it-but-be-sure-you-don’t-take-it-to-student-accounts-until-Tuesday.)

I looked at my daughter, growing into a woman, and realized how quickly things are changing. Those nights of having all five of us under one roof are becoming less and less frequent and more and more precious. The playful banter and raucous laughter that seems to only happen when we’re ALL here will end for a while. The noise will die down . . . A LOT . . . and the big space that seems to be filled up when all five of us are home will have just a little less personality to it.

Kate’s gone. Sure, she’s only a few blocks away. And, sure, I may see her later today with some things she’s forgotten here at home. But things have changed again, my world has altered just a little, and I must move on.

With tears in my eyes.