She's Really Gone

I can hardly see the monitor through crying. I've been crying for the past hour and can't seem to stop.

My daughter is gone...she is GONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I was a mother who had a child to take care of every day and now she doesn't live here anymore. How do you stop cold turkey like this? I can't believe she left the way she did. We have always been so very close. She followed me everywhere around the house like a duck. I couldn't even go to the bathroom without her barging in. When she barged into the bathroom she would have a huge smile on her face and say, "Yep, I'm here following you!", I would pick on her saying, "OMG, I can't even go to the bathroom!" and then she would plop down on the tub and chat about the world.

No one barges in on me anymore. It is quiet now and I never asked for that.

There is no patter of feet echoing after me in the house. The house is like a morgue. No music, no TV blaring, no lights to cut off, no mess to clean up.

This part of my life is over. It is over before it was supposed to finish. I'M NOT FUCKING DONE YET!!! I AM NOT FINISHED RAISING MY DAUGHTER, DAMN IT ALL!

I sound like she's dead. She's not. She lives with her father now. She feels like she's dead though. It hurts so much.

She didn't leave like some teens do saying "eff you, I'm outta here!". No...she made SO MUCH FUCKING DAMAGE that I don't even know what to do, where to turn or how to act. I don't even know how I can be a grandmother one day and have her children visit me. I don't know what the future holds.

All I do know is that it wasn't supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to be with me until she finished high school and then go to college. I was supposed to cry as she left for university and help her move to that next place. I was supposed to talk with her on the phone and ask how college was doing and start forging a life without her as I should because she went to the next step.

She took away my last school year of raising her. As a parent, don't you dream about your child's senior year? In a way, you feel that you accomplished something because you helped them get there. She took that away from me. Now her father can raise her the last year of school acting like the cool-ass dad letting her do whatever she fucking well pleases, whether it's good for her or not. He can now make up for all of those years that he didn't have much to do with her by letting her get her nose pierced, get gauges in her ears, tattoos, go out with "friends" that will most definitely steer her the wrong way and get addicted to drugs/alcohol and get pregnant all at the same time. Yeah, he's such a COOL FUCKING DAD!

If she wants to get gauges in her ears and tattoos/piercings everywhere, so be it. I just wanted her to get to the age of 18 before she decided to do it. Right now she wants these things because her friends have it. She doesn't want it for herself. She just wants to be a sheep and look like everyone else. I would talk with her a lot and tell her to do things for herself. If she wants her whatever body part pierced, it's her prerogative but ONLY if she wanted to do it for herself and not because Jane down the street has one. Am I so bad to say that? I just wasn't cool enough wanting her to be independent and doing things for herself.

I remember wanting a tattoo badly as a teen and also wanting my eyebrow pierced. My mother completely forbid it and I just KNEW I would do it once I got out on my own. Guess what happened? When I got out on my own, I thought about doing it and didn't. Why? Because I just wasn't in the same phase. It wasn't as important to me as it was when I was younger. She may feel the same way. The problem is she'll have a hole in her nose and ears that she'll be able to fit a DVD into if she wants.

I saw her Saturday. We went to lunch. I took her to work afterwards and watched her walk inside as I sat in my car. It hit me so powerfully that....she's gone. She's really gone. This phase of my life is over and I don't know how to let go.