I don’t know what title to give this post…and I honestly don’t know how I will spit out all of the words that are swirling around within me.

I am home from Elijah’s birthday party, and for the first time in at least three years, he did not come home with me. Partly because I am finally beginning to admit to myself that I don’t need to save him from his life, his surroundings, but also because he has more to keep him there, and it would be selfish for me to force him to come with me.

My house is empty, but my heart even more so.

This moment has been so long in coming. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been seeing traces of it for at least a year now. He has friends on his street, and there’s just no reason why he should want to come and hang out with me…especially not now that his buddy Donovan’s not around. And it’s normal…he’s a big boy now…and I don’t begrudge him that.

But my heart is broken.

Make no mistake about it…despite what anybody may say, my love for him is, and always has been, selfish. I got to play “second mommy” to him…everything I did was as much for me as it was for him. People will be quick to say that he is “lucky to have you”…but I call bullshit. It was all my greed to have someone to love, my selfish desire to belong to someone. I’ve been lying to myself, and I’m paying for it now.

Mona keeps telling me that I need to change my shift at work so that I can take him on weekends again…she is oblivious to the fact that he has no reason to want to come spend time with me, and that I wouldn’t do that to him. I’ve already delayed the inevitable by filling his summer with exciting trips to hotels with water parks, and to ‘Acago to see his buddy. I can see now that I was trying to hold on to the last remnants of a time that is now behind us.

When you’re the real mommy (or so I imagine), you feel a similar ache in your heart, but it’s different. Though the relationship changes, you’re still and always “mama”. Come what may, there’s nobody or nothing in the world that can take that title away from you.

But me? I’m Puff the Magic Dragon, not just with Elijah, but with everybody in my life who grows up and moves on, to the type of life that “normal” people have.

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant strings make way for other toys
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head now bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,
And Puff no longer went to play along that cheery lane.
Without his life-long friend, he could not be brave,
So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.

My “cave” right now consists of eating too much, sleeping too much, and crying loud, jagged, gagging tears. And despite my therapist’s insistence that I can now “focus on myself” and get my life figured out–“invest in me”, or some such crap–I am not quite ready to crawl out of my cave just yet.

My grief is selfish…it’s pathological. At best, it indicates just how emotionally stunted I am…at worst, it’s just short of creepy…and real mommies’ love for their children is never considered “creepy”…

Please understand that I’m not writing this as a way of fishing for people to try to convince me that what I’ve said here isn’t true, or that I “shouldn’t” feel the way I do. I don’t need to be told that I should be proud of the way that I’ve invested in his life or that he will never forget me or that he has been “lucky” to know me…please, make no mistake about it. I’m the one who has been lucky. I have loved him selfishly, and I am paying for that selfishness now with these tears.

I am quite certain that I have never loved anyone as much and as fiercely as I love that little boy…and that love is not diminished, I know. But I also know that the most precious times we have had are now behind us…behind me, truth be told…and I haven’t prepared myself for what comes next. At some point, I am sure that I will crawl out of my cage and reluctantly face the too-bright sun…

But today…today is not that day.