Maybe, more accurately, it should be titled 'rites de passage.' Anyway, the sense of it is the same.

[I read some years ago that Vinnie Testaverde's father, because of a heart condition, had to give up watching any of his son's games. In the same spirit, I am presently allowed to opinionate as long as I forego any discussion of politics. Insomnia and anger, it seems, make dangerous bedfellows, like the kind that can give you a stroke. So I'll follow the Doctor's lead and try to keep my focus on domestic issues. Domestic in the sense of, right here around the house.]

The youngest of the progeny has just announced her plan to move out of the house, and in fact has already co-signed on a lease, I think. And no small move it is - we're talking 40 miles or so, which in the D.C. area is the equivalent of 200 miles in less heavily congested locales.

It's the kind of news that makes you step back for a second because it portends a more significant change than you might have foreseen. Or rather, you really can't imagine what it will feel like until it's upon you.

The experience of raising teenagers is - ok, let's just stipulate such a thing really happens: Maybe it would be more accurate to say 'the experience of presiding tenuously over a location in which the teenage species attempts to coexist with regular citizens...'

Anyway, the experience is one that conditions you into an attitude of constant watchfulness, but different than the constant watchfulness you have over your pre-teen kids. With the over-13 offspring, there's less of the minute-to-minute observation - MUCH less - but much more of a wary, waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop expectancy that becomes the subtext to most of your waking life.

You find out, sometimes early on, that there's a lot more to worry about and you have a lot less power to influence what might happen. You can childproof your house and maybe even your relatives' houses, but you can't teenage-proof the world.

I know, there are those who maintain that difficulty with one's teenagers is evidence of some past or current failure on the parents' part, and therefore any 'teenage issues' are actually symptoms of faulty concepts and planning. Could be. Obviously, a financially secure and happily married couple will give their kids a better starting point than the other 50%+ segment of the population. But living the American dream is no sure formula for getting through the dangerous years unscathed. 'Parents of teenagers all live in glass houses' is a maxim I heard many years ago and I'm pretty convinced by the evidence that it's true.

So to look around at your existence, and accept that shortly it will be totally free of children and their various accoutrements for the first time in a long time, is simultaneously like:

• A weight being lifted; in the sense that the kid has made it through the tumult and is headed out into the world in one piece. She made it. She is ready to start her own grand tour of the cosmos.

• A weight being lifted; in the sense of a time when the constant watchfulness must be relaxed, for her sake and yours. It's time to envision your respective lives as autonomous and separate, just as all of our lives are. You'll always have an eye open for her, but you have to let her go.

• A burglary; a whole bunch of stuff you're accustomed to having around being taken away. Rooms emptied, small creatures vacated, comings-and-goings coming to an end. It will impact the way you shop, the way you cook, and whether you instinctively ask whether to leave the porch light on at night.

• The end of an era. Whether or not your parental tenure was Ozzie-and-Harriet normal, which mine was NOT, grooves got etched deeply into your everyday thinking and you were unconscious of them until this very moment when you can imagine them gone. It must be akin to the decision to retire.

For me, the odyssey began under very different circumstances around 24 years ago. Starting a family while you're in college is tough financially. My kids and first wife didn't have the easiest time. We started real young, which is nice now - when we are in our forties and the kids are old enough to speak with as equals - but it was very hard then.

But they don't make you get a license to have kids...thank goodness. And thank goodness the human genetic cabal is, apparently, pretty resilient. And to spell out another subtext, in case it's not evident: The notion you shouldn't have children until you are financially able to ensure a worry-free existence for all involved would preclude a lot of great kids being born.

I'm sure additional dimensions of this milestone will occur to me in the days ahead, and I'll try to make it a point to record them here. We expect to have another milestone later this week when we will be traveling. I'll be in Sarasota, Florida for about five days in a beachside motel with no Internet access, but there is a Panera Bread outlet nearby with wireless access so I hope to do some updates from there.

Non-political: I promise, Doc.