I'm scared now......

Once again I have insomnia.  I am sitting here contemplating the fact that my baby is rapidly growing up.  I see before me a teenage young man who sometimes tries to cling to his childhood.  That childhood is evaporating before my eyes.  I still want to hold him, hug  him, kiss him and make it all better with a cookie or some cuddle time.  I can get away with a few of those things now still...but not with some of his friends around.  He has a few closer friends I can hug him and tell him I love him in the presence of these friends and they won't tease him.  Can you guess which friends I prefer?

I worry that maybe his toolbox isn't quite full.  He might not have a few tools he needs to avoid something that needs to be avoided.  Own up to inadequacies, then work to make things right.  He's a very smart, child/person/young man.  I worry that maybe we've all argued a bit too much, leaving him with a penchant for arguing and picking things apart until they are understood.  Arguing is a sword that cuts both ways.  Sometimes arguing is a good thing, sometimes it's bad.  I wonder what tools he will use to solve some problems.  Recently he was faced with two bad situations.  In both he took the honorable path.  He diffused talk of a fight with an email asking if they could keep it civil for the team and just agree not to be friends.  In another situation, after a break up (the girl's mother got involved and forced the break up) he immediately took the high road.  He looked at how the relationship had been going, he realized it was a toxic situation and felt a sense of normalcy returning.  About a week later the girl called with her mother's permission and told him they could go out again.  He said things were going too fast, he wanted to slow them down.  He asked if they could just be friends.  Despite name calling from the mother and an attempt to smear his name, he simply posted that there might be some lies going around about him and posted what happened.  That takes a lot of guts for a teenager in my opinion.

Sitting in the front seat, the passenger seat of our car, I look over at the young man piloting the car.  I still see my five year old and not my almost 15 year old.  He's so careful most of the time.  Other times I am concerned because the brake pedal on the passenger side doesn't seem to be working.  It seems impossible that he's this age.  That he can safely drive, merge, turn, signal, stop and all the other things he does.

I admire his empathy.  It's instinctive for him.  It seems that it was an intrinsic value wired into his little body.  He has always cared about people around him.  He naturally comforts those in pain or sadness.  He buys food for those in need, donates his own money and asks for more to put in boxes, buckets, cans or hands.  Once when he was 6 we found him outside a museum we were exiting signing up for a newsletter and giving the last of his spending money $20 to help the Sierra Club.  He did it without thinking or asking for extra money.  We later gave him extra spending money.  The thought that animals would lose their homes moved him.  Pain and suffering move him.  He sometimes causes pain, when he does it wounds him emotionally.  There are a few people he's shown empathy to who have met him with hostility.  He forgives but doesn't forget.  They don't get his empathy anymore unless something truly bad happens in their life.

I'm scared that my job is almost over it seems.  I wonder how long he will need me.  I hope my job performance review goes well as he starts his journey into high school.  I am scared that years will pass when he grows into his own life before he realizes I still love him and he will always be my baby.  I am scared that he won't give me a good review and will feel like I was a very bad Mother, who didn't fill his toolbox adequately.

I guess it boils down to....I'm scared.......