"Self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness"

I know how to spell the word, of course. But I check. Just in case. And when you Google "maudlin," that definition pops up.

And I laugh.

Sentimental sot that I am, I laugh.

Self-pityingly twerp that I am, I laugh.

Then I start writing this post and, while a smile remains, turning the corners of my lips upward, I become a tad more serious.

I was at a friend's house yesterday. She, too, has a first-born son soon to graduate from high school. She has photos on her dining room table which she is sorting through. I assume she is putting together a "remembrance" page for the Sober Grad Night celebration some many most nearly all but my son newly minted graduates from the high school will attend after graduation. It's a safe place to keep the kids Friday night. Although, as we'll all surely admit, it just pushes all of the drunken debauchery parties to Saturday night.

I wholeheartedly acknowledge that I am cognizant of that march toward graduation Eldest has undertaken. I acknowledge, too, that I am sure I will be in need of plenty of tissues come graduation day. I acknowledge, too, that it is definitely a milestone.

But can I say it's a milestone no bigger than all of the other milestones he -- and, by extension, we -- have already conquered?

I went back to work just six weeks after he was born. We found the most glorious place for him to be. And I cried when Maria gave us photos she'd taken of him out and about in the city. "He has a life we're not a part of," I sobbed to Pete.

Come September, he'll leave. And I will miss him dreadfully. Dreadfully. I will be secure in the knowledge that, yes, he will have a life I'm not a part of.

And so it should be.

See? He's already in front of me.

[Cue "Circle of Life."]