pieces and ponderings

I know in my head that she is not in her apartment across town. The apartment sits empty waiting on new tenants. I know in my head that she has a new home, complete with a new husband and new adventures to look forward to as they begin their life together.
I know all of this. But still, sometimes I pretend. I pretend that she is still in her apartment across town. I pretend that she has been so busy lately with the two part-time jobs that she had until recently and hanging out with her friends at coffee shops that, well, she just has not been able to make it out to the home where she grew up, and where her mom and dad and youngest brother all still reside. It’s all good really.
And even when I am not pretending that she is in the apartment across town, it is still all good. I am very happy for her to be married to the man she loves and whom loves her abundantly. I rejoiced with her when her young man proposed. I was delighted to sit on the love seat in the dress shop, watching her try on wedding dresses, waiting to discover if she would find the right dress to say “yes” to. I was more than happy to hear the music she had selected to be played before her wedding ceremony and the piece that would be playing as she walked down the aisle toward her future, holding her daddy’s arm. I ordered the beautiful bright blue suede pumps that would adorn her feet under her once-in-a-lifetime dress. The blue suede shoes seeming like a perfect match to walking down the aisle to Elvis’ “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” (My little girl never particularly cared for the traditional wedding march.)
Two days after the pretty-much-perfect-in-every-way wedding day, our daughter climbed into the passenger seat of her new husband’s loaded down GMC truck, pulling a trailer with her equally loaded down Nissan Altima, and off the two of them drove, out of the parking lot of the apartment building where she no longer lives and toward their new home a few states away. Her oldest brother, whose flight back to his life in another state, and her youngest brother and mom and dad, all waving bye for now.
So, I know in my head, and even in my heart, that she is not in the apartment across town. But just a week into this new stage of life, with a married daughter and all, the reality hits in new ways. Like when I walk into her old bedroom, where she stayed before the apartment across town, and where she also stayed the week before her wedding…and I see her old softball glove, the one her coach gave her when she was 10, lying next to the Ziploc sandwich bags containing all of the volleyball ribbons that signified team victories from her junior high and high school days. That’s when I realize anew, she is not in her apartment across town.

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