Still here

I'm still alive...I'm just really struggling with the whole letting go of my child thing. I don't know the rules. I celebrate his independence and yet miss being needed. I know he will grow from the struggle and yet I can hardly stand sitting by when I know he is so broke and he's sometimes hungry. It drives me nuts to know he has an apartment with nothing in it but a bed and a tv. He has tennis shoes and no snow boots. But he also doesn't want my help. None of this bothers him much at all. I ask him "Are you sure?" "You're not sorry?" The answer is always resoundingly "Yes, I'm sure and absolutely no I'm not sorry."

I remember being so poor when I first married at age 21. I wouldn't take for those years -- I know they taught me many a valuable lesson and there was something very satisfying about just making it to the next paycheck. I don't want to keep my child from those experiences and those lessons.

I think. Watching it from this side is hard, hard, hard.