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After nearly four years, my last day of serving tables is almost here. For months I have followed every shift with complaints about my back and my ever-diminishing faith in humanity, and I never saw it as a career, so I was caught off guard by mixed feelings when I gave my notice. I really am going to miss my little restaurant.

The decision to leave has been an arduous debate, almost exclusively with myself. My husband’s salary covers our expenses and my earnings go toward our student loans, some of which aren’t even due yet. The knowledge that we could pay them off before Amelia incurs her own is a source of unnatural glee. I am also a worrier. My husband's philosophy is that things will work out because they've always worked out. His circular logic gives my ulcer a heart attack. What if my car engine dies? What if our landlord clues into the fact that we are grossly underpaying and jacks up the rent? What if our society collapses and my husband loses his job because there is no need for algebra under martial rule?

Clarity came at our kitchen table one morning during winter break. My husband made pancakes, eggs and bacon and I realized we hadn’t eaten breakfast as a family in five months. That is nearly a third of Amelia's existence.  For her it might as well have been the first time, since her frame of reference most closely resembles that of a hamster. We later went to the park and I thought about how our routine had become a game of “pass the baby.”

Here she is, I have to go to class.

Good, you’re back; I have papers to grade.

There, she’s down, now how was your day?

In my efforts to maximize my time with my husband and child, I had somehow created a schedule where only two of us were ever truly present at any given moment. It was disappointing, and not exactly how I pictured my daughter’s childhood.

So maybe the car will fall apart, the rent will double, or any of a million other things. Things will work out because we'll make them work out. We’re a family.