Break-ups are hard, really hard.

This past month has been a hard month. Not for me so much, but for my daughter. After nine years together and a month before they were to move in together, my daughter’s boyfriend broke up with her. Reason: His version of “It’s not you; it’s me.” So there was some scrambling to find her a new place, rent a UHaul, all while holding the pieces of her broken heart in my hands. Ultimately I knew she’d be better off without him and I’m confident it was his commitment issues that had him heading for the hills, but it is so hard to watch your child go through that pain. When the simple question of “how are you” causes immediate tears, you are never sure either one of you will make it through. But make it through we do, slow and steady.

My husband, the saint that he is thought the best thing for both my daughter and me would be an impromptu trip by the ocean. My daughter was already in Florida for a teacher’s conference and I was going to meet her. So by the time you read this post, I will be sitting on a beach, my toes in the sand, a stack of books to my right and my hands wrapped around a fruity umbrella drink. My daughter sitting right next to me is a younger version of me. No doubt we will laugh, we will cry, we will get massages, and we will eat good food that is bad for us.

When my kids were younger, and they would go through a break-up, I could usually mend their hearts with some homemade chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin cookies hot from the oven and a hug. But this was a bigger hole then any oatmeal raisin cookie could fill, and as I sit on my balcony with half my brain packing for the beach, the other half of my brain is thinking about my daughter and the strong, brave, and beautiful woman she has become. So these few days at the beach won’t be a mourning of an old life, it will be a celebration of a new one.