I had no idea that the one thing missing in my life has been spending time with all three of my girls, at the same time.

Yesterday our mother/daughter/sister trip came to an end. After five and a half days together the four Bisson ladies climbed into separate cars, each off to various parts of North America. As we did, we left one another with heavy hearts and tears in our eyes. Brianna and I were fortunate enough to be staying together as we headed back to Toronto. Mikaela had to stay on in New York for five more days, and Dominique went back to sunny California. We had a wonderful, happy, silly, bonding time with each other. It was nice to be spending time, not in one of our homes, but in a hotel, the four of us all together without distractions. No bills, no emails, nobody else. Just us four.

We had an absolute blast with each other. Laughing until we cried. Dancing in the streets. Eating our faces off and celebrating life. Excited for what the future holds for Mikaela and all the broadcast journalism industry tours she’s having with various Pepperdine alumni this week. Dominique is embarking on a new journey, but it’s top secret so I can’t breathe a word of it, except to say that we had an incredible time celebrating the possibility of her future. And of course there is the wedding in less than two months, and the new chapter Brianna will be beginning in her own life. We celebrated all of it. And we shopped.

I really wish I wasn’t the bill payer in our home because, damn I don’t want to be the one who opens the credit card bill next month, but I want YB to open it even less. So I’ll be taking it for the team like I do every single month. But this coming month I’m sure I’ll be wishing that I had a job of my own so that I might pay my own shopping bills for once. A book deal would be so sweet.

It’s weird, Yannick always asks me why I’m in a funk most days and I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of it for the last two years. I mostly chalk it up to hormones, and frustration with where I wish my career was at in comparison to where it actually is. I’ve always thought these are my biggest “concerns” but it hit me the at the beginning of our trip what is actually going on with me. I have to share with you that I realized during our first dinner together, that having all three of my girls with me is when I feel most complete. Whenever we’re not all four together I feel like there is a part of me that is missing, and I don’t feel quite “whole.” But the instant we were all with each other I felt lighter, happier, more fun than I have in months. As I put these pieces together in my mind I wondered out loud to myself; “how will I be when they’re all spread all over the place with husbands and children of their own? Will I still be struggling with missing them? Will I have fully adjusted to the set up by then? Do mothers every fully adjust to the empty nest, and to having their children scattered around??”

As of right now I have not got the answer to these questions, but I at long last do have the answer to “why so blue Shantelle?” I love my daughters, and I’m not quite whole again until I have them with me. What a blessing it is to love other people, and to get so much joy from the people I gave life to. I’m beyond grateful for being my girls, the three greatest gifts I’ve ever received.