My son is 23. He as "independent" since 17. After 5+ years I have come to the realization that I have a anxiety about him that is adversely affecting the quality of my life.

In a nutshell, he is an itinerant street muscian. He is basically a homeless wanderer. (Parents, if you immerse your young children in music, this is a possible outcome.) He lives up and down the west coast, mostly in the SF Bay area.

He is intelligent, one of the smartest people I know. This has been a root of his problem. He floated through public school, dazzling his teachers and getting straight A grades without any effort. In the end, his intelligence failed him. He never learned to struggle for any goal. Indeed, he seems unable to form any goals, let alone organize an effort to acheive them. He sometimes makes grandious and ill-conceived plans that go nowhere, usually dropped with a day or two.

He is cute, like a young Bob Dylan. His cuteness as a child also enabled him. Now, as an adult, he is still cute, but this is waning, as it does for most of us as we age.

He is a moocher. He will take all advatages he can until his benefactor grows weary of the one-way transactions. He is not shameless. He gets embarrassed and backs off when confronted. He just does not seem to have any insight into his own behavior. I no longer give him any more than $50 now and then and he rarely asks for more.

Enought on him. I have tried, cried, pleaded, cajoled, discussed, begged, etc. - everything a person could do to try to influence the course of another person. All to no avail. It is not abundantly clear that the only thing I can do is love him the way he is, unconditionally. Unconditional love has been the best attitude I have adopted. He is resolutely steadfast on his path.

I do not understand his life, but have come to realize he is of a different culture than I am in many ways. I don't think it is my place to try to bring him to my culture any more than it is to bring an African tribes person to my culture. All I can do without patronizing is to observe, accept, and maintain civil relations.

Here is my problem in a nutshell: I spend most of my spare time thinking about my son. It might be an obscession, I don't know. Thinking about him does not intrude on other activities when I am engaged in them, but when I have idle thinking time, such as when doing mindless chores, walking, biking, etc, 90% of my time is spent thinking about my son in some way or another. It is like my brain has a background radio going that is stuck on this one station. When he first left home my thoughts were at the level of high worry/anxiety. For the last year or two, since I have adopted a more accepting attitude, my thoughts are mostly of low level anxiety, often just thinking about him. I cannot say they are not with anxiety, but they are not painful.

This is not a healthy way to live. I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to not think about my child! But I don't want to endlessly ruminate on this one part of my life. In times past I have found that discussion here has been helpful, so again I write and post.