As I write this, the house is incredibly quiet. Forest has spent the last few days before our departure on a min-vacation with friends. He returns this evening, and the quiet solitude of my present space will once again be filled with the anxiety, noise and clatter of two kids, a husband and getting ready for the long drive ahead of us tomorrow.

We'll pack the car, and ge everything ready for the early morning trek to Forest's new home in the wilderness.

The devil on my left shoulder is thining about how great it will be to have more of this peace and quiet. I get so much more accomplished, feel less stressed, and can FOCUS for a change. There's less anger and animosity in the house. Even with all these selfish reasons, my devil reminds me that this program will help Forest find all those things for himself, too.

And the devil on my right shoulder is driving these deep feelings of guilt, resentment, and fear into my core. "Will he be okay? What if he likes it better there than at home? What if he hates it there? What if they send him back? What if, what if, what if..."

That's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of quiet solitude.

But his time away for the last few days has given me a glimpse of what it will be like while he's gone. There are a LOT of adjustments we need to make, and in some respects, the quiet tme will allow me the freedom to really work on those adjustments, along with my husband. In other respects, I'l be wrestling with these devils for a while, I'm sure.

There's no such thing as a perfect mother. Yet we all struggle with, and aspire to some ideal we have in our heads. As a child, I watched my parents kick my oldest brother out of the house. My husband shared with me the story of his oldest sister, who opted to live with her biological father instead of her mother and the rest of her family.

To me, I could never fathom the idea of "sending my kid away" for any reason. Not a single reason at all.

And yet, here I am, packing up my kid for a drive into the wilderness where he'll basically reside for the next year or two.

I know, in my core, that this is the best possible choice for everyone - he's going into a program designed to help him figure out who he is as a person and where he fits in as a member of society. We have parental devlopment that we're doing as well, so it's not like we're just shipping him off and washing our hands of him. We have to prepare ourselves - our family and our home - for his eventual return, and to help us become better parents in the process.

It's not going to be an easy road, and it's not going to be all peace and quiet like it is today, I'm sure. But it's also not going to be as bad as I'm imagining, nor as guilty as I'm feeling right now.

It's a process. Like anything in life, it's a process.

And the longest voyage begins tomorrow.

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Lisa and Forest are currently working on writing a book about this camp experience. This blog features bits and pieces of Lisa's perspective. Watch this blog for weekly updates, and sign up at http://www.TheRenaissanceMom.com to get notified when the book is released!