The future

I bought Erik a coloring book called, "The Anti-Coloring Book". On each page is a prompt and often part of a drawing. So there might be a squiggle and the prompt is "the original artist was stung on the thumb by a bee, only you can finish the drawing". Erik asks us to read him prompts until he gets to one he wants to do. So there was a drawing of a crystal ball and he was supposed to draw his future.

He gets started and draws a time machine and Superman (I think he got a couple prompts mixed up) and then I look at him and he's crying. I start asking if he's ok, why he's sad, and he tries to tell me but can't. He says, "It's too sad to say it." So my mind is flipping through possibilities, is he sad because he knows he'll never be Superman? Did he break something of ours and he's afraid to tell us? Finally he says he's sad because thinking about his future means thinking about not living with Joe and me and that's sad.

So Joe and I comfort him and tell him it's a long ways off, that's why it feels sad and scary. I don't really want to tell him that by the time he's moving out he'll want to move out.