As our crazy busy summer came to an end, I started brainstorming all of the original content I would create for this blog as soon as the munchkin headed off to school in the morning today. Wanting for weeks to write for you, I quickly learned that shuttling her around to various summer camps in a part of the country I was previously unfamiliar with (new roads, traffic patterns, tourists!) while maintaining a home that is undergoing renovation was too much to do. But this morning our little family rose and readied early and walked down to the elementary school bus stop on Coast Highway. With the grey Pacific Ocean on the skyline, and a row of anxious kiddos on the bench, we waited for the big yellow bus to pick up our first-grader before we walked back up the hill to get on with our first post-summer day in our new home. My husband got on his calls, and I got started on the kitchen and laundry before sitting down to write something brilliant for both new and loyal RPM readers who have been so patient with me this summer.

Except that this won’t be brilliant, and it won’t be original. Because I am freaking out.

My little Inara, my “radiant light,” has always been very independent, and I have always encouraged this. Due to circumstances in our lives when she was born and very young, we have spent weeks and even months apart at times while she was with her father or other family or while I was traveling for work, and although it is never easy to say goodbye (and actually seems to get increasingly harder for me), we’re pretty much pros at it. She’s been in Miami while I was in New York, Los Angeles while I was in Dallas, various U.S. cities while I was on the other side of the world, and every single time our goodbyes were a simple “bye Mama!” and off she went with her little Disney Princess rollerboard suitcase and bouncing blond ponytail. So why then, when putting her on a yellow school bus to go a mere 4 miles down the road for a piddling 7 hours, did I have a mild panic attack?

Maybe it is because of all that we have been through together. I know it is cliché to want to sit down and pore over baby albums (ok, unorganized envelopes of pictures and Facebook posts) but watching this 6-year old California girl in her Laguna Beach hoodie and sparkly rainbow high-tops jump up with excitement when the bus came over the hill, all I could think about it was how far we have come. She was born in Manhattan, and brought into a marriage that was already drastically crumbling. A year later her parents were separated and she and I moved to a small garden apartment blocks away from LaGuardia Airport in Queens. I had a steady job that I loved and that supported us both, but I often relied on neighbors and friends to help with childcare when work required long hours and frequent travel. There were sweltering hot days spent in a basement laundromat and days when our eyelashes were covered in ice as I carried her across snowbanks and slush puddles to her day care center. After a few years, our lives changed drastically for the better when we moved to Dallas, where she got her own room (and closet), a pristine swimming pool, an adoring new step-dad and a loving new extended family. We both adapted to a new school and new friends quickly, and she stood by my side during my wedding and for opening night performances, fashion shows, museum outings and park explorations whenever my blogging and social life allowed it. When we decided as a family to move even further west earlier this summer, she welcomed the change with open arms and has turned into a California beach girl quicker than I could have imagined. We’ve spent more time together this summer than we have been able to in years past combined, and although we were both looking forward to school starting, (“I need new kids to play with, Mama!”) it has been a great experience exploring new interests and a new town together. So really, walking down to that bus stop this morning was just another adventure in a long list during her short 6 years. But to me, it felt much bigger than that.

I know there are many more big steps like this one. I know that this feeling of losing my baby is only just beginning. I have notifications on twitter, instagram, facebook, text and email with words of encouragement, advice, and warnings about the future. But regardless this does feel like a seismic shift in our lives. I filled out the proper paperwork and got her registered for her new school, but I we have not had the opportunity to meet the teacher or see the classroom or get an idea of what she would be doing today. This is all her. Her stories will be breaking news to me when she steps off that bus at 2:40 this afternoon. Is she scared? Probably not. But my heart will be racing all day thinking about that possibility. I’m sure she’s being adorable and making friends and absorbing information into that overactive brain of hers like always. but until I know this I will not be calm. Maybe all this time it hasn’t been me comforting her through all of these changes in our lives; maybe it’s been the other way around. While she’s been clutching that silky purple blankie for comfort, I’ve been clutching her. And as she boarded that bus this morning, eager to face a new adventure, I had to walk home without my lovey.