Life Is Dirty. Life Is Messy. Life Is Cruel.

I have always tried to keep my blog posts as positive as possible because I never want to bring anyone down.

But recent events in my life have shaken me, turned me upside down, and gutted me in a way I wasn't prepared for. And I realize that, by trying so hard to keep things positive, I haven't always been entirely honest with myself or with the people who take the time to read my words.

Life is dirty.

Life is messy.

Life is cruel.

You are officially warned. If you can't handle sad stuff, you need to skip this one.

I will be posting another one as soon as I can get my shit together.

Maybe this is the part where I am supposed to say that I understand.

She's an adult. She is allowed to make her own choices. She is allowed to leave the country. She is allowed to decide who she wants in her life and who she doesn't. She is allowed to change her mind about me. She is allowed to put up whatever boundaries she thinks she needs.

I understand all of that.

I don't have to like it.

And I sure as hell don't have to pretend it didn't hurt.

For six days, I was convinced my daughter was being held somewhere against her will. I imagined every horrible thing my brain could come up with. I called people. I talked to police. I contacted the embassy. I tried to find answers in a situation where there apparently weren't any answers I was allowed to have.

And then I started to realize that maybe the horrible thing wasn't that someone had taken my daughter.

Maybe the horrible thing was that she had chosen to leave.

That realization hurts in a completely different way.

Because if someone had taken her, I could fight.

I could search. I could call people. I could scream at the universe. I could do something.

But what do you do when the person you would move mountains to find has decided that she doesn't want you to find her?

Apparently, you sit in your house at night and stare at your phone like an idiot.

You reread old texts.

You look at pictures.

You remember stupid little things that you didn't know would become important because you didn't know they were the last things.

You start mentally going backward through every conversation you've had for the last year looking for the moment you should have realized something was changing.

And then you find a hundred moments.

The slow replies.

The lack of initiating contact.

The emotional distance.

The little things that I chalked up to her being an adult and having her own life.

I thought she was growing up.

Maybe she was.

Maybe she was also quietly walking away from me while I was standing there waving goodbye to someone I thought was just going on an adventure.

That one hurts.

I keep thinking about June 22nd.

I met her at a coffee shop to pick up her cats. She was moving into her friend's house so she could save money and start traveling. She bought my lunch. We talked. We laughed. I left that conversation feeling happy for her.

I was excited for her.

I thought, Look at my girl. She's going to see the world.

Then she came on the boat with our family from the Netherlands on July 1st.

We had a great time.

Or so I thought.

I didn't know I was looking at my daughter for the last time.

I didn't know that the person sitting there with us had already decided what the future of our relationship was going to look like.

I didn't know I should have hugged her longer.

I didn't know I should have taken more pictures.

I didn't know I should have paid attention to every stupid little detail because apparently those were going to become memories instead of just another Monday.

And that is the part I am having the hardest time with.

Not that she left.

That she left without giving me the chance to know she was leaving.

I could have handled a lot of things.

I could have handled, "Mom, I don't want to have a relationship with you right now."

I could have handled, "I need space."

I could have handled, "I'm moving to New Zealand and I don't want you to know where I am."

It would have fucking hurt.

But I could have handled the truth.

Instead, I spent nearly a week wondering if my daughter was alive, safe, being held somewhere, being hurt, being manipulated or being trafficked.

That is what I can't get past.

You don't get to put somebody through that and then act like their reaction is the problem.

And yes, I know I have an active imagination.

I listen to entirely too many crime podcasts. I have watched too many documentaries. My brain can take one weird detail and build an entire Netflix series around it before breakfast.

But this wasn't some imaginary scenario I invented for entertainment.

My daughter disappeared.

Her car was left at the hotel where she worked.

Her car key arrived in the mail with a note that didn't look like her handwriting.

Someone else told us she had left the country.

Nobody would let us see her.

Nobody would let us hear her voice.

And when we finally got messages, the only thing we wanted was proof that she was okay.

That was it.

I wasn't asking her to come home.

I wasn't asking her to tell me where she was.

I wasn't asking the police to drag her back to Tennessee.

I wanted to know that my daughter was standing somewhere in the world, free, safe and making her own decisions.

Apparently even that was too much.

And somewhere in the middle of all of this, I realized something else.

I am allowed to be angry.

I don't have to turn this into a lesson about unconditional love.

I don't have to say that everything happens for a reason.

I don't have to be the bigger person.

I don't have to pretend that because she's my daughter, I am required to absorb whatever she decides to throw at me.

I can love someone and still be fucking furious with them.

I can miss someone and not want them back in my life the same way.

I can understand that she is an adult and still be devastated by the way she chose to treat me.

Those things can exist at the same time.

So here I am.

I have a junk journal sitting in my house that I made for her to keep memories of her travels.

I have a scrappy doll I made for her for luck.

I have pictures.

I have her art all over the house.

I have memories.

I have her cats.

I have a ridiculous amount of love for somebody who apparently doesn't want any of it.

And I have a broken heart.

Literally, apparently.

Because of course my body had to get involved.

I spent days terrified that something horrible had happened to my daughter, and then my own body finally said, "Well, since you're determined to completely lose your shit, I'll take care of the rest."

Chest pain.

Numb arms.

Headache.

Blood pressure through the roof.

An emergency room.

A million tests.

And a doctor explaining that extreme emotional stress can actually fuck with your heart.

Who knew?

Apparently my heart is just as dramatic as the rest of me.

But somewhere between the hospital bed and coming home, something shifted.

I realized I cannot spend the rest of my life trying to convince someone to love me.

I cannot chase someone around the world.

I cannot force my daughter to want a relationship with me.

I cannot make her tell me why.

And I cannot keep destroying myself trying to solve a problem that she has chosen not to solve.

That doesn't mean I don't love her.

It doesn't mean I won't worry about her.

It doesn't mean I won't miss her.

It means I am done.

Not done loving her.

Done chasing her.

There is a difference.

I hope she's safe.

I hope she's happy.

I hope New Zealand is everything she wanted it to be.

I hope she sees beautiful things and meets good people and has the adventure she apparently needed badly enough to leave everything behind for it.

And I hope someday she understands what this did to me.

Not because I want her to feel guilty.

Because I want her to know that I loved her.

I loved her enough to be terrified.

I loved her enough to search.

I loved her enough to break.

And I loved her enough to finally let go.