Must. Be. Bolder.

Tomorrow, my strength will be tested.

Not from any marathons, or triathlons or gamey puerco tacos purchased from a roadside stand in Akumel, Mexico.

Tomorrow, we will be boarding another plane for the short flight to Denver and a hop, skip and jump over to beautiful Boulder, where we will be dropping our youngest daughter off for college.

You probably don't know this about me, mostly because I have the cynical, acerbic, ill-tempered writer thing down to a science, but I am given to ugly streaks of sentimentality.

It's embarrassing.
It's messy.
And it's unstoppable.

On several occasions, last week my wife walked in my room, interrupted what I thought was going to be a private moment and caught me red-eyed and teary.

"Are you worried about how we're going to pay for all this?"

"Yes. That's what it is."

Last year was difficult, when we dropped daughter #1 at the University of Washington. But in the back of my mind, I knew she would be fine. She is resilient, unflappable and has a seriously good head on her shoulders.

My youngest on the other hand, has a flair for the dramatic and tends to live her life in the emotional extremes. She is either incredibly jubilant and vivacious or she is sad and grumpy, suffering from premature curmudgeonliness.

She's also my baby.

Her new student ID photo doesn't look like this, but she will always look this way to me.

Thankfully, my wife can see past all this tzuris and assures me everything will be alright.

But here's the ultimate irony. For years, through all the screaming, playing, yelling, singing, crying, dancing, fighting, stomping, bickering, and just general mayhem that one would expect with two lively daughters, all I wanted was a little peace and quiet.

And now, with the two of them at college, that same peace and quiet is the thing I dread most.