It’s what I have to do

And then I felt my soul crumble… The pain was worse than the shatter of my heart. As I watched the bus pull away from the curb, I felt like the sidewalk had been pulled out from under me. Once again, he was choosing to live his life away from the hustle and bustle of the world he’d grown up in. He was choosing to become his own person. No matter how many times he said “Mom, it’s just something I have to do to find out what I can and can’t do” it still felt like he was running away from who he was. Perhaps so. He wasn’t happy living in this burg, and we both knew it. He wanted to be a free spirit. He made a few attempts at it when he was younger, and yet each time, he’d come home. It wasn’t as if he failed completely, because at least he’d done what I had not, and he tried. Failure should be a stepping stone to something greater, not a road block. In this, it seemed that my nineteen-year old son was far ahead of where I was at his age. So with that, I let him run away from the life he’d been living, and the person he’d become. All the while, I knew that somewhere out there he would find the person within that he was always intended to be, and so did he. I know one day he’ll come back and he’ll thank me for not stopping him, for not hindering what he had to do. One day he’ll apologize for breaking his mama’s heart, and I will be forever grateful. It matters not that my soul crumbles now, for he is off on his own adventure and my mama’s heart is proud of him. The hurt will pass.