Sister Sorrow And The Betrayal of Time

So my baby sister moved back to Dallas this past weekend.  This left me in a heap of weepiness and sobbing, in the arms of a nuclear family who are completely clueless, despite my attempts to raise them to be compassionate and caring human beings.

The last time Jazz moved to Dallas, leaving me a heap of weepiness and sobbing, in the arms of an insensitive man, she was six.  I was pregnant with the Lone Star Girl.  

The family had moved back to Corpus at the time that I moved to Austin for graduate school, so I moved back to Corpus after finishing school to be near them, trailing the insensitive man who I soon married, after securing a good job and a place to live.  Then I got knocked up and they decided to move back to Dallas.  Nice.

I spent Jazz's childhood monopolizing her vacations and training her to come to Corpus for college, but when she became a teenager, I kind of gave up on that dream of getting her back, because she seemed so distracted by the glitter of teen party life for awhile there.  Her early training won out, however, much to my joy, and Jazz moved to Corpus three and a half years ago to attend college here, majoring in kinesiology. 

It was yesterday, I tell you.  Maybe last week.  It couldn't have been longer ago than that.

But however short a time ago it seems, time has marched on.  Now she  is gone back to Dallas to do an internship for her final semester of college.  I shouldn't be so broken up about it, given that she is probably coming back for two years of graduate school after this semester.  Still.  Two years won't last long of three and a half years were an eyeblink.

And guess what other leave-taking will occur three and a half years from now?   The same length of time that seems like such an eyeblink since Jazz started college is all the time left....