Early on a recent August morning I awoke well before the sun had even thought about rising, earlier than I prefer to wake, closer to the time I prefer to go to sleep. I had remembered to set the timer on the coffee maker the night before so the only sound in the house was the odd assortment of groans and gurgles required to produce a pot of hot coffee. To those of us that drink coffee it is musical. Incidentally, the same noises are required of me to tie my shoes or any other task that requires bending at the waist.

I awoke early because the day that always seemed like one of those far off days had arrived and it was time. It was time to take our daughter and a few of her belongings that she had deemed “essential” to a college campus eight hours away.

Drive eight hours, unpack those essential belongings, carry them up 8 flights of stairs to a room half the size of the one in which those essential belongings had once adorned, and then leave our daughter to be educated. Leave her to sleep in a room where a father can’t peak in and take comfort in knowing that she is sleeping safe and sound as I have done most every night since the day we brought her home.

When I went out to load one last box of essential belongings into the pickup it was dark and the stars were bright and it made me think of the night we brought her home from the hospital. It seemed like yesterday that I was unloading the last of the essential belongings a new parent gets issued, when I paused and looked up at the stars and said to nobody and everybody, “I need some help.”

Somehow over 18 years has passed since that night, and somehow we managed to raise a girl that is above all things a good person. So early on an August morning I looked up at those same stars through the same eyes that see different now and said to nobody and everybody, “Keep her safe.”

So we loaded up and headed west towards the future with thoughts of the past so thick it was hard to see sometimes. Thankfully by the time those thoughts were getting to me the sun was up and I had an excuse to hide my teary eyes behind sun glasses. It seemed to hit hardest when we got within 100 miles of Bozeman. In a last ditch attempt to drag Sierra’s childhood out a little longer I started to gradually let up on the accelerator and contemplated taking a wrong turn while she was napping.

It’s not wrong for a parent to entertain such selfish thoughts. You sort of get attached to these people when you spend 18 years completely entangled in their every moment. Apparently teenagers are not of this same mindset as it didn’t seem all that trying of an experience for Sierra to part ways with us. Perhaps it’s a built in mechanism to keep them from being content to live in our basements.

For a little girl that would cry when I didn’t get her pony tail straight she never shed a tear as she hugged us and ushered us to the parking lot. I am happy she wasn’t content to spend the rest of her life in our basement, and I am impressed with her strength, motivation, and drive to move onto the next chapter in her life. But come on…are just a few tears and a little blubbering as you bid ado to dear old dad too much to ask for? Kicked to the curb by college…so it goes.

Early on a recent August morning things changed. I’ll keep you posted.