I picked Beth up at camp this morning … I feel complete again! She’s tired and badly in need of a bath, but can’t take one until the plumber gets here and fixes our not-yet-a-year-old sump pump that quit and has caused flooding in our basement. Sigh … that same basement that is nearly (but not quite) finished on one side and piled high with stuff we have yet to unpack on the other side. Piled high is the key word right now, as we have stacked everything on top of everything else. Just what I wanted to do on my Saturday afternoon.


Beth had a good time at camp and apparently didn’t have a major bout of homesickness until 24 hours before departure time. She told me she didn’t tell her counselor because she doesn’t like to tell anyone but me how she feels because she gets “harsh answers and they don’t understand like you do … they just tell me to get over it!” She laid her head in my lap on the way home (I was a passenger in the back seat while my friend and her husband drove) and fell asleep. Have I mentioned how glad I am to have her back? I found myself thinking this week about the parents of the Virginia Tech kids or Kelsey Smith and realizing that their kids are not just gone for a week but will never be home. And I realize how missing your kid—or your kid missing you—is the real definition of attachment. When someone is not in your life, and there is a palpable void, that is an attachment. When your child misses you because of the emotional connection and not just for what you can do for them or give to them, that is an attachment. When they disappear and never call unless they need something or you breath a sigh of relief when they are gone (and go days without thinking about them)... well, that's not much of a healthy attachment, is it? It doesn't matter if that is not how we want it to be ... sometimes that is just the way it is.


Nancy Ashe told me she has a real problem with “out of sight, out of mind.” If someone is not in front of her, she doesn’t think about them at all. That is, unless she needs something from them.


I can’t wait to snuggle with my Half-pint, aka Beth. I didn’t need her to be gone a week for me to know we are attached. I think Velcro is an appropriate description …


I also want to hasten to add … had I not started ATN, notwithstanding the whining I did in the previous post, I wouldn’t have my Velcro Half-pint. So yes, indeed, I have been repaid in many ways tenfold.


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