Abandoned by user

It seems that life changes happen all at once, and this has been a big June for me and my family. My youngest son graduated from high school two weeks ago. My daughter graduated from U of O yesterday, and she and my husband are in Eugene packing up her apartment.

This may be the last time that we live in the same state. She will be home over the summer, for one last summer, and then she is off to Tennessee with her fiance, and will come home not as a resident but as a house guest (of course, you're never really a house guest in your childhood home).

My son is starting at the community college this fall, so I'm not confronted quite so brutally with the reality of adult children. He's going to be with us for a couple of years yet, although he's already talking about getting an apartment.

But, the bottom line is that I've got a lifetimes worth of memories to make with my girl before she heads off to the Great Smokies. I will be watching a lot of Murdoch Mysteries and Poirot, cooking - I need to teach her a few of my signature recipes so she can cook them for herself, since a quick train trip home for the weekend won't be possible - and just generally hanging out. I probably won't be around as much as usual, since I need to pack everything into those last few months with her!

I've been feeling melancholy and nostalgic for days now. I'm just grateful to modern transportation, which means that she will really only be a few hours away by plane. Imagine how parents felt sending their children off to the west, or to the new world, knowing that you might actually never see them again. Heartbreak.