Please give me a slap and tell me to get a grip. My lovely clever funny DS1 buggered off to Australia last year aged 19. This week he will be 21, and I have never seen him as a 20-year-old. He was only meant to be going for a year (a gap year, but a gap between what? school and nothing, as far as I can tell) but he managed to get a further year on his visa, and I don?t think he?ll be back before next June, or even longer if he extends it again.
I?m immensely proud of him for coping on his own, and finding work, friends and somewhere to live, and being completely self-sufficient for the first time in his life. But I miss him so much that sometimes it makes me cry. I?ve just packed up a little present for him, a tiny ceramic sculpture of our dog, who also misses him, and I?ve written a card, and it was so hard to write something that doesn?t sound sad. I did, of course, because I?m not insane.
I?m alright most of the time, but sometimes (especially now because it?s his birthday) I feel so so so so sad, like he?s gone away from me and he?s never coming back. In some ways, of course, he isn?t coming back, the little person he was doesn?t exist any more. It?s so weird. When you have a baby, you just think you?re having a baby, or if you look ahead a bit, a child, but you don?t think you?re going to be a parent to a person, a grown up who is completely separate (AS HE SHOULD BE) and living his own life. I know I will rightly get flamed for this, but it feels a bit like someone who has died a long time ago ? long enough ago that I don?t feel intense grief or anguish, but someone I loved enough to leave a big hole. Obviously someone I can still skype in heaven too, although not very often.
And DS2 is completely different from when he went away, like about a foot taller and taller than DS1 now, it?s like he?s a new person too.
I don?t know what my point is, really, just that I feel 
and a bit lost, and feel that I should get over myself.