Letting Go

Work is winding down for now.  Unless the schedule changes, I should be off and free to be full-time Mom to my girl until Tuesday, August 26th.  We're going to Pittsburgh the weekend of the 22 to see my grandparents.  I can't believe a year has passed since the last time they've seen Eliza.  That's way too much time.

Work has been good in the sense that it has given me financial freedom from C.  Eventually, I'm convinced it will give me real freedom from C.  I vacillate all the time about what I should do as far as he's concerned.  It's hard breaking up a family, especially as I care for his other kids and will no longer be a part of their lives once I split.  C has some good qualities, I too often focus on the negative.  My going back to work has helped us get along a lot better.  In the end though, we will never be happy together and I refuse to be one of those women who's always complaining about her situation but never takes action to change her life.

Eliza has taken real steps towards independence and its beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.  I am no longer the center of her universe.  C, his kids and frankly, the babysitter have all moved into equal roles in her life.  Eliza will start preschool in a month with a class mostly comprised of kids older than she.  She fit right into the class which was wonderful.  But I will miss her on my weeks off from work, I will miss all the wonderful time we've had together just as I miss it now.

I'm sure Eliza would have made this move even if I'd not returned to work.  She would have started preschool in the Fall, made some friends and started to form a life independent of all of us.  I am grateful and proud of the little person she is becoming.  

But oh, how I miss that tiny little baby who wouldn't let me put her down.  My little girl still needs me, but she's my little girl anymore, she's her own little person and oh boy, is she lovely.