This morning was different.
In an enormously significant way.
Today, I did not drive Michael somewhere. He went on his own.
For the first time in his life, our son has driven himself to a destination for the purpose of learning, without our direct supervision or control.
It was just this year that Michael graduated high school, got his driver's license, got a car, took a friend to a movie, and started in the summer program at the local community college.
For his entire life, he had been struggling to find his interest, his occupational passion. But the last two years of high school offered him the chance to get into Materials and Manufacturing, which included working with metal - something he's always been interested in, to some degree. He discovered that he was very interested in welding. We discovered that when people around us heard he was interested in welding, they became interested in providing suggestions about how to get into welding programs, unions and career paths.
One random guy at a welding supply store overheard us while we were buying welding gear for Michael, and offered to guide Michael into the local pipefitters union, because he himself was extremely short staffed. "We lose a lot of welders to other states; around here, very few new welders join up so if your son got into the supply, he'd have all the work he could handle."
And in one of the oddest but heartwarming coincidences, it turns out the instructor of Michael's community college welding 101 course is none other than the husband of the lady who ran one of Michael's preschools (earlier stories here mentioned "the book"). He asked Michael if they'd met, and then described his mom and me, and explained who he was and how they were connected. So Michael has a familiar friend now at the conclusion of his school career, someone who had been there at the start of it.
Last week, we had been driving him to school and dropping him off.
Yesterday his mom helped him navigate the incredibly frustrating campus web site to buy a parking pass.
And today, when I asked his mom if I was driving him, he piped up "I'm driving myself."
This is huge for him. A monumental step in his evolution as a person, as an adult, as a man. He's taking his first wobbly steps into real adult life. He has a goal, a path and a good start.
And just maybe, I can start actually planning on what his mom and I will do when it's just the two of us.
