Warning: The below is boring and pointless. Just something that’s bugging me. No insight, commentary or comedy follows. In fact, nothing interesting follows.

Ah, the pain we put our parents through. We never understood, because we viewed them as a sort of indestructible force. Parents are intended to save us kids from the dangers of the world. Even though they could never possibly understand us, we knew that they could comfort us.

I bring this up because twice in the past week I have seen my daughter as this fragile being who must learn the ways of the world. I wish I could protect her from some of the pain I know she must be feeling but I can’t. Sometimes the best lesson in the world is that pain, and learning how to rise above it.

The first time she tugged at my heartstrings was when she was getting on the bus. At the bus stop we were discussing the previous day. She told me, forlornly, how the day before her two friends wouldn’t sit with her and she had to ride the bus alone. Her eyes were filled with the loneliness that no adult understands. A child’s loneliness is a complete, utter feeling of being alone. I could sit on a bus alone, without a care in the world. But a six-year-old? That moment is all she had. She was alone. Her family was elsewhere and her friends had chosen not to be with her. At six, she has no frame of reference to “count her blessings.” That moment was the painful present, with no escape until the future came bumping into it.

When she got on the bus that morning, those two friends again chose to sit elsewhere. As the bus pulled away, this little blonde face looked at me, hurt. Waving as if this bus would take her to an inevitable future where there would never be anyone to talk to. A future from which she would never return. The sadness on her face was complete. She knew she had to leave me behind, but without her friends by her side she wasn’t sure how she would cope with the moments ahead.

Turned out she survived. I, however, had this lingering feeling of desertion. I felt as though I cruelly sent her into an extended period of isolation. I should have held her back and said, “Forget school! Who needs those people when we can have fun and learn all by ourselves!” Sigh.

The second painful moment came when we were discussing the baby. She had told her mother that she was afraid that people would forget about her after the squirt is born. We tried to reassure her, and tell her that we’ll never, ever forget her. But, we had to face facts. The baby will certainly change life as we know it. We can’t lie about that. She knows it. How can you assure a child that a baby isn’t a replacement? That you can share love amongst everyone?