She's leaving home

I hope not in the manner of the Beatles' song of that name....

But she is leaving. I just made a flight reservation outbound, two tickets SFO-JFK one-way. I'm thinking about my (one) return flight, JFK back to SFO. I could leave about ten, arriving here about 1:30 or so. Or should I leave in the evening, returning here rather late at night, for the chance to go to church one last time with my "baby" before she begins her first year of college? Heh, who am I kidding with this "baby" stuff? She's a national merit scholar, world traveler, polyglot (French, Latin, Japanese, plus her native American English sounds "poly" enough...)

The ideal thing would be a flight leaving about 3pm but it's more like 7. How could I stand it, moping around the airport with nothing to do for hours on end?

Yes, she'll be back in just a few months -- maybe Thanksgiving I hope but certainly at Christmas. Yes, she has been gone longer -- 5 months in France in 2005 -- back then we knew she was coming back. But this -- this is the beginning of the end of her time with us; from now on she'll be more away than here.

It's what we've been preparing her for all these years, I guess. Perhaps we've not been preparing ourselves for it as much as we coulda/shoulda though.

Well, one foot in front of the other. I have to make hotel reservations in any case.