You know, when I was 16 I was *dying* to leave. (I pitched boarding school; I pitched an early college program; I got nowhere.) It's not that I didn't love my parents, I just wanted, I don't even know what I wanted. I knew that growing up meant leaving and I wanted to be grown up.* When it got right down to actually packing my suitcase and driving to college and having to say goodbye, I ended up crying for about a week. I handle the leaving and coming back a little better these days, too much practice, but what I'm saying here is that you might be surprised by how much difference another five or ten years will make. I feel like I need my parents about as much, now that I'm 35, as I did when I was more like 7 or 8.

*I sometimes wish I hadn't grown up in a culture/class where it was clear that growing up meant leaving.