In trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself in between crying, sweating, screaming, staring at the clock from insomnia and trying to look normal while doing all of these things - I have found:

That infomercials can be so convincing and I am running out of room for all of the exercise tapes I have bought.

If I stare at them long enough - will I lose weight?

How many more websites can I go to trying to prove I am sane and that there are others out there like me?

How many more times can I ask my daughter just why I can't go to college with her trying to convince her we would be great roommates?

How many more letters can I write her as she is getting ready to leave for college thinking I will get that last little tidbit of wisdom that I had forgotten to tell her in?

How much more can I vacillate in my feelings of -glad she is going- sorry she is going-being jealous because she is going and not me and then having to realize I am supposed to be the grown-up here?

How many more times can I want to see her in one of those cute smocked dresses just one more time while splurging and buying her grown-up clothes at Saks?

How many more dogs can I consider getting thinking they will be the substitute for my daughter leaving?

How many more times can I wonder how it all went so fast when in the middle of the high school years I never thought it would be over?

When will this roller coaster of emotions, hormones and melancholy settle down?

How boring it will be when they do?