Buttons and strings and other boy things

Here I sit, surrounded by laundry to fold, dishes to wash. The cacophony of my every day life is beating it's drum. But here I sit. Today has been a day of reminiscence and reflection.
Yesterday I had cleaned the twins room, top to bottom, windexed the walls, organized toys. All of that. Today My little boy (who I guess is not little at all) asked me so very sweetly if I would help him clean his room so it would look as nice as the girls. Of course I answered yes. He was just so sweet! So him and I are going through the things in his room. All the boy treasures that he keeps. I was trying to be quite mindful of what was important to him, although a lot of it looked like trash to me. He has bottle caps, tiny paper airplanes, buttons, rocks, a whole paper clip section. It overwhelmingly looks like junk. But I'm in there, and I'm cleaning with him, and he's organizing his "collections" and telling me what each thing is and why it's so important to him. And I realized, for maybe the first time? That this person whom I've shared my life with for 10 years, this person is not "mine" he is his own. He has his own ideas, and sacred things. These little tiny pieces of garbage are his treasures. Rubberbands, and screws, just lots of 'boy" things. This is just the beginning of his separate life. From here on out this boy will move farther away, and find his own way. It just seems so very impossible to me that he is capable of this, this growing up. I blinked and I missed it. He's not mine. He is his own. From now on I cannot lead him, only guide, quietly. His path will be his own. Not mine. His will his own. His "treasures" his own. I only hope that as he goes, he will look back once or twice. I hope he realizes that he is leaving me with my own treasures. This boy child is on the cusp of discovering him self. And I cannot wait to watch and see this flesh of my flesh find his way in the universe.
He will be fine, I'm not sure if I will, yet.