Mom left me for my first night of real life last night. It was sad as it always is, me whimpering, "No, mommy! Can't you stay just a few more days?! Don't leave me yet."

My mom got on a plane to return to Florida. I just wanted to cry like when I was twelve and my parents dropped me off at YMCA camp for two weeks and I felt abandoned and alone, which doesn't make sense because I was at camp! Freedom! Friends! Archery!

And I drove away, assigning metaphorical value to every turn the car took, every bump in the road, and every tree alongside the highway, vascillating between excitement, tempered hope, and utter horror: I'm driving into my future, each tenth of a mile taking me further from a past I can no longer return to with a simple flight home; these trees that line the path to my future will comfort my journey with their familiar brown trunks and green leaves; surmounting the cracks in the worn streets of Louisiana will strengthen me to mend the fissures -- geographically, emotionally-- in my own life.

How do you grown-ups do it? Why is there no return policy on this "life" business?