You Raise Them And Then They Leave You!

 I miss my son.

He (Eli) moved away a little over a year ago to go live with his dad and stepmother 400 miles away in Santa Cruz, California. I let him go because he really really wanted to -- he was pretty miserable here, hating school, life and Los Angeles. I didn't want him to resent me for the rest of his life if I said no to his pleading sixteen year old self-- I wanted him to be happier so I reluctantly agreed. I agreed while being smothered with hugs and kisses and promises that we would "talk all the time" and email and video chat and visit and .... It didn't happen.

 I feel like I have been fired and it hurts like hell. I am now only allowed to call him "every seven days." Because he feels "pressured" if I call more often.  He is not an emailer, the video chats only happened twice in the whole year and I have not seen him now in almost four months. The empty nest sucks and I am not adjusting well . The irony of course is that during all those years single parenting him, I used to fantasize about the day that I would be "free." Let this be a wake up call to all of you out there craving that same freedom.

It is a was a way over-rated fantasy. Honestly, is a hobby and lots of " extra time for myself" supposed to in any way help fill up the empty hole that I feel inside? Am I feeling such sadness because this separation wasn't in the natural order of things? Would it have felt better somehow if he had left to go off to college at 18 like the norm?  Is this feeling simply a profound jealousy that his father and stepmother now have him all day every day and I don't? He apparently isn't missing me much at all and bottom line is that feels so awful.  And don't even get me started with how I feel about "them"-- (not such nice people I tell ya)-- or the fact that the kid is being "unschooled" meaning-- No School! No job, very few friends, no motivation,  no plan, no discipline. Just Eli out in the woods of Santa Cruz playing video games and getting "unpressured!"  But I digress-- 

I wanted to finish my job, the job that I had started. I raised him since he was born completely by myself. It was me and him against the world. (I even wrote my second book, The Single Mother's Survival Guide all about all my experiences raising him and my first children's book The Invisible String about the string I used to tell him about, when he would cry at the pre- school door as I dropped him off so I could go to work - (The string that connects all of us that love one another). Maybe this very closeness that we shared is the reason that he felt such a strong need to break free and be with the father that he only knew for a few weeks over summer and Christmas vacations all those years.  The father that I have heard a boy needs to bond with to fully grow up into a healthy man?  All I know is that I feel cut off and cut off way too early.  And the really sad thing is that he is still very unhappy, still having a really hard time- still filled with all that teenage angst. When your child is hurting and you can't even be there to comfort them, it is a powerless awful feeling. He is still struggling so much that I wonder if letting him go was all for naught.

Why does no one ever tell you (in a way that you can really truly hear) that you raise them and then they leave you?  I do remember being told by so many veteran parents years ago that you should "enjoy every wonderful/ miserable moment because you blink and they are gone!" But I guess I didn't really hear it. Maybe you just can't really hear it until it applies to you and by then it's way too late. Sure enough,  I blinked and he was gone.

I keep seeing mothers and their teenage sons walking around town and that old familiar giant lump in my throat swells up and I can't even call him to hear his beautiful changing voice, because my "seven day wait" isn't here yet. I covet all those mothers that have their acne faced, fabulous growing boys still around. I kind of like the idea of all the thousands of supposed  boy/men in Italy who never leave home and their moms still take care of them cooking, loving and laundrying them! Right now that sounds great. I know, I know-- I really do have issues!

 I love my dog, my stepdaughter, my husband ( today in that order!) But the fact is, the way that I feel in this moment, I would give them all up in heartbeat, to live with Eli again. Does that mean I was/am "enmeshed?" Do I really even give a sh-t what you call it? Not so much.

 I simply don't know how to deal with the sorrow, the ache inside, of driving past all the places that  make up my mothering history. The old places we used to live, the restaurants we went to, the parks and the schools.  It is a death of sorts and the mourning is fresh and seemingly not getting any better. And yet ( and OF COURSE I am grateful for this) he is okay. He just chose not to live with me anymore. And that is one huge Ouch.

 Is  their something wrong with me that it is now a full year later and I feel just as heartbroken as the day I saw him and his dad ( who I divorced when Eli was 3 months old) driving off in the truck with all of Eli's stuff? Or am I just a momma lion who, like all momma lions,  love their off spring fiercely-- maybe too fiercely? I want my boy to be happy and I don't know how to help him from so far away -- that makes me feel pretty helpless on my end.

Nobody that I know really wants to hear about this anymore, maybe they just don't know what to say... I can't say that I blame them. I know that I sound like a whining, sniveling, despondent character around all of this. Guess that's why I needed to blog about it. I had to tell someone-- someone kind, someone that would listen.  Today that kind someone  is you. Thank you for being there. For being here.

 And in the one- in -a -million chance that you ever read this, my son, I love you more than you will ever know. I miss you. Today the "string" doesn't feel like enough, so-- call your mother! 

Just Love,

Eli's mom