It is the last week of parenting my first child.

Sure, it’s twenty-twenty-two and statistically he’ll land back in my basement when he’s twenty-two, too, too deep in debt, too deeply depressed, and too deeply jaded by the job hunt alongside the boomers and the stoners and those of us who still haven’t landed the dream as we look towards the second half of any hopeful existence. But, I’m mourning. Still. This is the word for the sorrow that seeps across my chest as I walk inclines on the treadmill, 5:30am, at the local YMCA, as he instructed me. “Don’t spike your cortisol,” he reminds me. “You don’t want to trigger your fight or flight.”

My fight or flight is triggered. In fact, most days, when I’m not fighting tooth and nail for a scrap of recognition or the ownership of my own situation, I am flying above my own body, looking in. I’m wondering how that wide-eyed girl-mom of 18 ended up weathered and lined, solemn and road-weary — a good soldier if nothing else.

I mix straight vodka on top of one of those spiked seltzers white coeds drink now. When I say I like to “mix things up,” it’s a Dad joke at best. He’s in his bedroom, door closed and lights dimmed, face-timing with the girlfriend he has enough words for. I’m upstairs, buzzed and buzzing, with words on my fingertips and my lips and no clue how to break through or if I ought to. T-minus 5 days.