She left....

She's gone. For now. Maybe she'll be back....and then maybe she won't. We fought, she left to stay at a friends, she didn't specify for a day or a week, or a month, or ever...it hurt. Terribly. I thought she'd move out sometime in the next year, though I admit I always bridled at the thought, but I just never expected it to be like this. I guess I wanted the 7th Heaven Special (anyone else remember that show?)kind of moment, she'd decide to move in with a friend, I'd help her pack and buy her some new things for her new place, we'd have tearful happy hugs at the door of her new wonderful tiny place and we'd rave about how cool it is over lunch the next week. That was the vision- NOT the reality.

It's now been four days- she's not back and her planning seems DESIGNED to cause me heartache. Will she finish high school? Am I a bad mom? how did this happen? WHY did this happen?? All I'm left with are questions with no answers and fear for her future now that it all seems to be hanging in the balance..oh, and anger, oh boy am I angry!!
Part of me wants to cave, beg her to return on any condition and have her back here, with us, where we love her and will know she's okay. And part of me wants to forget this pain, forget her for a while, and just not deal with any of it- (seems to be working for her). Finally, there's this one tiny little part of me that is so angry that she could do this, could be this dumb, this hurtful, this blind- to jeopardize graduating high school EIGHT weeks before completion, to simply up and walk out on her family (me really, that what this seems to be about this is between her and I - somewhere along the line she decided I specifically was unbearable)- but her siblings are being hurt too, and she doesn't seem to care in the least about ANY of it. and For what? because I wanted her to come home for an afternoon and have dinner with me? Because we asked her to be hygienic, considerate and dress appropriately? Because we set standards that she had to meet?

I don't know if she'll come back or not, I don't know anymore if she'll graduate or not, I am pretty sure college may be out of the question, and I'm praying that there isn't more bad news coming down Amy Lane at the moment, but I have a strong feeling there is- I DO know, right now I'm hurt and angry but it will pass, because I know I can forgive my children almost anything, and anything I can't forgive I can move past- I also know that this is the pivotal point, the point where things between her and I will never be the same, not to say they won't ever be good, but an era is unequivocally over, we may eventually bond in other ways, at other stages in her life, but this has been an expedient and quite painful toss out of the windshield, figuratively speaking, and I've actually been through a windshield literally, I can safely equate the two and tell you, I'd rather go through an actual windshield again. I so wish it hadn't been this way, I wish I knew what to say, or how to say it to make this all better, but now is the time at which I have to deal with the fact, that for her, I can't make it better anymore, I can't stop her from making mistakes anymore, no matter how painful it is to watch her make them, I can only be here when she looks for me, and hope that my other kids don't choose this route out of kid land.