My 17 year old son will be going to college soon. He'll enter 12th grade in the fall. And his dad is willing to pay for him to live on campus, in a college in our home state. And my son needs to break away. I just don't like it for myself, that's all. It's very sad to me that my little boy is gone forever. Those days are gone forever, just writing this makes the emotions come up and tears start to flow.
I'm so damn lucky to have had these children, so privileged that I was able to have them and keep them for so long, they didn't get terrible illnesses or injuries, they're bright, beautiful - and they were never mine to begin with. I've always known that and now I have to give them back to the world. And I'm so painfully aware of that with my son more so than my daughter, because he's really been gone for a long time, since he's lived full time at his dad's since age 12. I'm so fortunate, I've been so gifted with him. And I love him so much - it's just painful to know he's really on the cusp of adulthood, it's just getting real now.