Launched

They call it "launching" for a reason.
Picture an ocean cruiser easing from shore...horns blowing, music playing, and smiley happy people waving goodbye as they head to some exotic tropical vacation.
It's nothing like that.
Launching your kids into adulthood feels more like a toy boat being ripped out of a child's hands by a swollen muddy ditch before you were finished playing with it.
Yeah.  It's like that.
Before you have a chance to finish your Safe Sailing presentation, they're off- caught in the swirling current and bumping into debris, the life-jacket you handed them tossed on the ground by your feet.
The boat's not afraid.  The boat is just riding the waves.  But you stand on the shore crying like a 5 year old.
They're floating away from you.  Fast.  What if they sink? What if they get smashed?  What if they sail somewhere you don't know how to find them?
They bump into plenty of things...
Regardless of how much you try to prepare them, life is always harder than they expect.  Classes are boring.  Roommates are inconsiderate. Part-time jobs suck.  And employers dare to take taxes out of paychecks before they give them to you! Homework is due, even if no one told you to look online because that's where the professor posted it. They get stressed.  They don't eat right or sleep enough.  They get sick and have to take themselves to the doctor (although they do send you the bill).  And they take sudden detours down streams you did NOT plan for! (How dare they steer their own little boat! Did they not see the detailed course you charted for them on the map taped to the boat's steering wheel?)
But every now and then, their travels bring their boat back to home port for a minute.  And you realize that they're still afloat.  They're wiser.  And more...Themselves.  They like saurekraut and sushi.  They play on their church worship team and volunteer for Outreaches in poor neighborhoods.  They find people to love who love them back.  They tell stories of their adventures in places you've never been, and wear clothes you didn't buy them, and have ideas you didn't put in their head.
They've traded in their toy boat for an adventure schooner.  One they are learning to be captain of.
They are not sinking.
So you smile and restock their cargo hold with encouragement and food and advice and clean laundry and cash for another semester (and a few oranges to ward off scurvy).
And then you sit back and drink your Starbucks and watch them sail off into the sunset.
Bon voyage, Launchees!