Today, CJ climbed onto the bus which I have carefully arranged, and went off to his regularly scheduled job. 
Today, I climbed into my car and went off to my regularly scheduled job at UCF as well.
Life, Regularly Scheduled. Life, as it’s going to be from now until….when?
Three years ago, CJ left on his first big adventure with the ARC of Jacksonville. He was away from home for four loooong weeks. We were anxious…nervous wrecks, basically. Was he going to be able to do this? Would all his carefully taught life skills hold solid, or would he be asked to leave the program? He lost his state issued ID. He dropped his phone in the pool. He had the time of his life. And we very, very carefully, considered the possibility of life beyond CJ for the first time in two decades.
Two years ago, CJ left again for another big adventure with the ARC. This time, it was 8 weeks. We were much less nervous. He had shown us that he could thrive without us, and we spent some time at a condo on the beach, chewing on that idea. It was better than we expected and our anxiety levels went down nicely. Meanwhile, at the six week mark, CJ’s anxiety levels started going up. When was he coming home? How much longer? He was fine to stay but we wondered how far he could go, out on his own, before he’d need to return to the nest.
However…we had tasted a bit of a new kind of freedom. Life with CJ is an astonishing thing. Life without CJ is a revelation.
Last summer, CJ went away for another 8 weeks.
We booked a cruise and left the country.
Yes, we gave it some thought, and decided to visit Fidel Castro and a bunch of ’57 Chevys in Cuba while CJ partied on at the ARC.
Times have changed.
This time, like any young adult away from home, CJ had no desire to talk to his parents. In fact, he repeatedly hung up on his mom. He lost his ID again, but his reports home were very uneventful…downright boring. No blowing food up in the microwave. No eating everyone else’s food. No swimming with his phone. No, no. While we were away, his buddy Blake Bortles came to visit the ARC for the day, and my son ended up featured in Sports Illustrated Online. 
Clearly, with the right support, he can function without us just fine.
But….
Eight weeks passed. CJ came home on a Saturday. Monday morning, he was on a bus back to his program and to his job. There was no transition time, no chance to shift gears. He was back…as if the ARC had never happened.
Except that it had. He’d had a taste of freedom. And so had I. Our awareness has changed and we are both forever different.
I did something I never would have done before. My son was home…and I got on a plane and left for a vacation in Hawaii. Me, who had, somewhere in the past 20 years, forgotten what it was like to go first…I got on a plane and I flew, guilt free and breathing in new possibilities.
I realized that CJ would be fine in the right place. He’d be happy living his life, with his friends, living his own life, during the week. We would visit on the weekends, take him to church and out to Sunday dinner, and then we’d all return to our lives. He’d be fine. And so would we.
We cruised to Cuba, and I could see it all. It was possible. CJ had it in him. So did we.
And then we came back. And I realized that there’s no program in place, no place for CJ to go. I realized that it’s not going to happen. There’s nothing in Orlando that meets the basic criteria that I have created for an acceptable place for CJ. No light at the end of the tunnel. No options. Nothing.
I got depressed. I think CJ got a bit depressed too. He was originally making $1.10 an hour at his job, after his astonishing raise of 120%. But I got a letter saying his salary had been slashed to $0.85 an hour…his productivity rate had plummeted. According to CJ, “They told me to hush.” I asked if he was just running his mouth and distracting other people and he said, “yes”.
Yeah. I get it. I really do.
For both of us, I think our hearts are not in it any more. I know this is true because I screwed up the bus schedule…twice. Me, who never, ever, screws up anything related to CJ. I’ve let the reins slip in my hands just a bit. But that bit is all the difference in the world.
For the rest of my life, I’m going to be calling for busses, getting assessment letters and telling CJ why he can’t go and live the life that he’s show us all he’s ready to live. I’m going to be carefully choosing my work options, limiting my options to places that will tolerate CJ in the office on the days where arrangements fall through, where things can adapt when things go wrong in our carefully structured world.
And I’m grieving this now.
I still have a 2-5 year goal of finding somewhere for him to go, where he can be free to “go to college” in a full time basis…his endless summer that will see him through to the end. But it mean we’ll probably have to move…leave our friends, our lives.
And I’m starting to grieve that too.
This summer, CJ and I both grew up, and we can’t go back.
The 22 year honeymoon is over.
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