Just returned from another successful launch–kid launch that is. Drove Man Child, Michael to Disney World in Orlando for a seven-month internship with the Walt Disney World College Program. As always, milestones with kids are bitter sweet.

The Sweet: Disney is a great fit for Michael. “The happiest place on earth” suits him perfectly. He’s a happy kid who has an open heart for screaming, tired, hungry kids. For whatever reason, he loves them and they love him! He’s a person who is totally unaware of physical discomforts like heat and humidity if he’s having fun. If he’s interacting with people, not confined to a seat or being asked to do physical labor, he’s pretty much having fun. He has no personal space. He welcomes a crowd. The more the merrier. His tolerance level for the very things that irritate most of us is off the charts.

The bitter: I miss him. He won’t be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. When BF and I buckled our seat belts on the plane in Orlando Wednesday evening, the tears rolled. I felt as if I wasn’t a mom anymore. I had accomplished my last college move-in day, endured my final emergency trip to Walmart for a twin mattress pad, and purchased my last box of Pop-Tarts.

I’ve done this before; it’s an indelible memory, the day I rode away from New York leaving my little girl to live her dream. I was a passenger in the back seat of a taxi on my way to the airport; she was walking down the sidewalk, head held high, bag slung over her shoulder. We were parallel for a couple of blocks until we parted like a scene in a movie. I (played by Diane Keaton or maybe Goldie Hawn) had my nose pressed to the window of the cab waving furiously with tears streaming down my face. She (a young version of Meg Ryan) was marching, perfect posture–just like I taught her–straight toward her dream.

My two kids are now one thousand ninety miles apart: one in Florida, one in New York–I’m somewhere in the middle. Not long after we rested our suitcases on the floor at home, I received a two-word text message from Man Child that simply said, “so happy.” My kids are both living a life of their own choosing, succeeding, facing the challenges that one must face while realizing a dream. What more could a mom ask for?