Tuesday looms ahead – it’s Sunday today today – as another one of those massive changes that is happening this month. First my marriage, then the flat, and then it’ll be Tuesday.

Tuesday the daughter starts her travelling. Vietnam for a couple of months, a week or two in Thailand, and then on to the USA for another couple of months. I’ve been filling my head with thoughts of my future, but I’ve very clearly been avoiding thinking about her not being a daily part of it.

I’m proud of her, excited for her, scared, all the normal feelings I imagine most parents have when their kids finally set off on their first big life adventures. But my heart just about breaks with the pain of how I’m going to miss her. But it probably would no matter what else was going on, it’s just that my heart is a bit battered at the moment.

Himself and I took her for dinner together last night. She brought a friend, probably partly because of not really wanting to spend an evening of unknown emotional content and partly to fit yet another bit of socialising in to her alarming full schedule. It was a nice evening, chatting between all of us, laughing with the lively lovely girls and the stories of friends and silly antics. Moments of painful familiarity between me and him as he offered me a sip of his beer to see if I liked it instead of the wine. The awkwardness of a goodbye that we still don’t entirely know how to manage. But still, a pleasant evening.

But now, with daughter out of the house squeezing in a few more visits to friends before she flies away, I really feel how alone i’m going to be. Cat on the sofa beside me, dog on the floor by my feet, and no one else to share a cold lazy evening with. I know I’m not the only one. I know he must feel her absence already. Just as they are starting to get along better off she goes. That must hurt too. The hard thing is that we’re feeling the same pain, sharing the same hurt. But that’s the only thing we’re sharing. And that feels just as sad.