Heartbroken

Even after all this time,

the sun never says to the Earth

"You owe me".

Look what happens

with a love like that

it lights the whole sky.

-Hafiz

Brian received orders a couple of weeks ago now. He wanted to take both girls with him. I said no. I offered to let Kylie decide. I was certain, based on the way she talked about their home that she wouldn't want to move their full time.

I was wrong.

She wants to move with them to Las Vegas.

My heart is broken into a million pieces.

She says she wants to move, to try a new school. She says she loves me but she wants to go somewhere warm. I hear her. I know her. I still cry.

I have raged. I have been mean. I lash out at her because I hurt so bad. No one said I was always a good mother or a completely mature one.

I love her. I will miss her every moment of every day that she is away from me. I am her mother. She belongs with her mother.

But she does not owe me. That quote at the top reminded me of that today. She does not owe it to me to stay with me.

Despite being her mother, despite loving her from the depths of my soul, despite spoiling her, despite holding her hand at every teenage crisis (real or imagined), she does not owe it to me to stay.

That does not mean that I am any less hurt or heartbroken. It just puts my mind in a different place. A better place.

Because I think I have a love that lights up her whole sky.

Enough to say "You do not owe me for any of it".