Maybe I can find a good support group to help me with this...

It's a tradition at my daughter's school that the 5th graders take a trip to Washington D.C. every year. She and I attended a meeting last week to obtain information on dates, cost, tentative itinerary, etc. and that's when the reality of it all set in for me. How in the world am I gonna handle putting my little girl on an airplane and having her travel to another state for five whole days without me?!?! I've chaperoned every field trip possible throughout her entire life and I'm a nervous wreck when she's gone on one without me - and I'm just talking about local, day trips within our state. I'm already stressing out over this trip and it isn't until October. I know in the back of my mind that she'll be fine but I still can't help being a little freaked out by this whole thing. I really wish I could go with her but aside from the fact that we can't afford an additional $965.00 for me to go, she's already expressed to me her desire to go on this trip without me. I realize it's nothing personal toward me - just her independence coming out, but that's not an easy thing to deal with either. I'm encouraging her to find one of her friends whose mom will be going as a chaperone so she can buddy up and room with them. At least then it will be someone I either know already or can get to know between now and then. I'm really not an overprotective parent. It's just that no one takes care of her like I do and this will be the first time ever that she's been on an out of state trip with people who aren't family. Just writing about this makes my heart hurt. I feel like Steve Martin's character on Father of the Bride (you know, the part when his adult daughter tells him she's in love and she's getting married but what he sees and hears is his little five year old daughter saying those words to him) because this is the little girl I see getting on that airplane and flying off to D.C. without me, not a mature 10 year old who doesn't need her Mommy 24/7 :(