To say he and I are close is a vast understatement. I'm still his mom, which means I bitch at him about stuff, and don't always say yes when he wants to do something . . . and remind him every single time he leaves the house to be careful and smart. But I'm his friend too. It's not an easy balance to achieve, and most of the time, I'm more his mom than his friend. If Doug and I have done our job even remotely well, we've raised him to be an independent adult.
Here's the thing though . . . I really like him as a person. I'm proud of the man he has become, and am proud of the direction his life is taking. Doug and I both say that we want the boys to be successful by whatever yardstick they measure their own success. Whatever his dreams are, whatever they become as he navigates his journey, I hope he gets to do them, live them, enjoy them, fulfill them.
At this point he's probably sick of hearing about how he should take advantage of these four years to really experience college. I remind him with regularity not to wish this time away, or be in any hurry to finish growing up. He's a crazy-serious kid, prone to work too much, stress too much, commit to too much. He's already talking about getting his first internship at Belmont as a freshman, and planning when and where he wants to do his first semester abroad.
As many times as I've wished over the last seventeen years that I could stop time, I have never wanted it more than I do right now. I'm gonna miss him. Like crazy.
A few months ago, at the beginning of his senior year, I came home from senior sunrise and cried uncontrollably. When he came home a little while later, and asked if I'd make him and his friends blueberry pancakes, he couldn't help but notice my blood-shot, swollen eyes. He hugged me, and I whispered, "I'm just gonna miss you so much." His response that morning was, "As much as you don't want me to go, is as much as I don't want to." But he has to. We both know it. It's the next step in his life.
So here we go . . . his music is changing, and so is his dance. And so is ours.
