Missing my pieces

I haven't been apart from my little duck since the day she was born for more than a few hours. I suppose I could count the time she slept over at my mom's house when I was trying to wean her, but I was only a few yards away at my grandma's... was there for bedtime and for breakfast, so does it really count?
  But now we're hundreds and hundreds of miles apart for the first time. It's so quiet. It's so lonely. I'm desperate to know everything she's thinking every second we're apart. Is she having fun? What does she think of the plane? Is she getting enough attention? Is she having fun with her family?
  Obviously, intellectually I know most of the answers to these questions. But emotionally I want to be there with her. She's a little piece of my soul, wandering around, exploring the world. She used to be inside me. And then she lived off of me. Now, she's an independent little creature, able to go far off with other people.
   My son is sound asleep near me and I wonder how long it will be before he can go off without me. A few short years. That concept is so mind-boggling. That years suddenly feel short.
   Looking back to how I felt right after high school, it felt like I was never gonna get married. Looking back into the first few years of me being married, it felt like I was never going to have children. I was so desperate for it. For these big life events to happen RIGHT NOW. But the truth is... they did happen fast. They weren't slow, weren't a long process. It felt long and impossible... until it happened. And then suddenly my period of waiting seemed so short. Its a fact of adulthood that I am faced with over and over again. It's something that's been said to me for as long as I can remember. But somehow, these life-truths don't become real until you've lived through it.
  I'm going to be 28 in two short months. 28, waiting for my husband to come join me at our new base. So many things have changed, and here we go, ending up back where we first met. Life is funny that way. It's made us both pretty reflective lately.
  I miss him. I miss my little girl. But all too soon this little vacation from real life will end and we'll be back to the craziness of all of us here, packing up for the move. I'm going to try to enjoy these days while I can. Even though they kind of suck in their own way.