Life stages

So, the 'boy' is off at the end of this week - boy being son, Ezra, now nineteen and about to commence his five years of Fine Arts training.
'But what happens at the end of all that?' he asked me recently. 'Who knows?' I'd replied, usefully, being one of two parents who have never put 'getting a good job' as a top priority after any education phase.
A, there are few 'good jobs' to be had these days, even if you have a first in whatever you had studied - plenty of bods with doctorates wandering about C.V in hand, and B, few people really know at that age what they really want to do, especially artists.
Actually, I didn't just say, 'Who knows'; I said lot's of encouraging things about life lessons, artists being creative and free thinkers, craftspeople, problem solvers, innovators, and all the best rock bands have emerged from art school - an exciting possibility for Ezra as he is rapidly turning into a multi-instrumentalist.
These last few days have been emotionally charged - for me mostly - as we sift through his belongings and decide what should be taken and what should remain at the Mother Ship. How crap of nature to provide women with the menopause as their offspring are about to jump the nest. I only have to look at a pair of his socks and tears threaten to emerge.
It's all good: he's going to a wonderful city, not too far away, but far away enough; the college is everything we had hoped for; and it's time - time for him to look after himself, budget for food, learn that clean underwear doesn't miraculously appear in a drawer . . . It's all good and my intellectual (?) rational side knows this but it doesn't stop the emotional and sentimental side sidling over and prodding me every now and again: 'remember when he made that?' 'Oh, look his first jumper' . . .