How to be A Gap Year Mum.

48 hours... that's how long it is until our daughter, Mia, steps onto a plane and into the biggest adventure of her life. 
5 months of travelling the world.
5 months of no work, no studying and, best of all, no parents.

" How do you feel?" my friends ask, " You must be worried. Are you sad? This is it, isn't it?  She's leaving home. Does it feel like the end of an era?"
And I pause for a moment. 
I need time to think about it. 

Because I suppose I should be feeling all those things. 
I suppose I should be preparing myself for impending heartache. 

But the truth is, I'm not sure how I feel.

As a parent, I have spent much of my life full of the uncertainties that are inherent to a job that has no description, a role that has no rules, cares that have no end. 
I spend my days worrying about whether what I have said or done is right or wrong, whether what will happen next is going to be awful or incredible, whether what I believe to be true is actually a threadbare fabric of misconceptions.
Our daughter spreading her wings, floating freestyle through the world for a while, that's just another one of those things not to be sure about.  
Today, like every day since our children were born, I grasp at rags of emotion and wonder how they fit together.
Like every day since they were born, I feel many things a little bit and nothing quite completely.

On this grey, rainy morning, sitting in our little kitchen, in a tiny city, in small, unsettled England, it's easy to imagine taking flight. 
Who wouldn't rather be heading towards sunshine and dreams-come-true and days of carefree wandering? 

 And, of course, I can't help remembering how it felt to be that young.
To feel the breeze of the future ruffling my hair.
To dip my toe into the ocean of tomorrow and wonder which way the current will pull me. 
To feel the intensity of almost perfect moments in almost perfect places. 
I remember how that felt.

 It feels as though it was just yesterday...it feels as though it was so very long ago.

And now it is our daughter's turn.

I picture her walking through the departure gates and away from me.
Walking through the departure gates and into the next part of her life.
The painting we have been creating together is almost finished now, the last few strokes beginning to dry, the lines almost, but not quite yet, blurring into memories.

It's time for her to start creating a new canvas,  to be guided by a new map, with new co-ordinates.
Time for her to follow the beckoning path of the future she has been waiting for. 

And she is ready. 

I hope that I am.

I picture her walking through the arrivals gate into an airport full of light and noise and colourful confusion.
I picture her, hopes and dreams stuffed into her turquoise ruck sack, stepping out into a hot and steamy world that is too far away for me to touch.

And I hope that it will treat her well.

I hope she returns wearing the stories she lives and the stars she touches like invisible pearls around her heart.

I hope she has the time of her life.

"How do you feel?" my friends ask.
And I can't answer that.
Because in the end, that is not what matters.
What matters is what we share. 

And what we share, is, and always be, love. 

Go well my Mia.