My son

Cutting the apron strings wasn't supposed to be this hard. I hope this is temporary, but I don't know. My son doesn't want to live at home with me anymore. He's going to be living with his dad for 90 days, to give that a trail run. My heart is crinkled up. I want to go back to when he was a little boy, one who clung to my leg, and one who asked, "Can I ride Mommy?" and would hop on my foot to be carried around. Same little one gave me one of my many memories of being a mother when he was around 1 1/2 years old; after I held him over my shoulder and patted his back while saying "I love you", he patted my back too. The hardwood floor in our old house has scratch marks where he would run his little car back and forth, contemplating on important things like how fast the wheels could spin, or if he could make it to China sitting upon his tiny Matchbox car. We had those leisurely hours which seemed to go by very slow and purposeful, which now as he is angry at me, pass before my eyes as if to say,"Too bad, you didn't do well enough, or enough at all, and now you lost me". He's not a baby anymore. He's a young man, on the brink of manhood, and he doesn't respect me. He would like to tear at my heart with very bad words, reminding me that when he turns 18, he's going far away from his stupid mother. Mother.