There is a moment when your child gets too adolescent to cuddle. For me, that moment arrived when my 14-year-old son, Joe, headed to theater camp for a month. He was so eager to get there, he asked me to drop him off at the entrance. But there are papers that need signing when you entrust your child to strangers. Nonetheless, I was hoping for a goodbye hug.

After depositing his bags onto his bunk like a Nepalese sherpa, I reached to hug him. He ushered me to my car instead, where he bent down and gave me a peck on the head accompanied by a loving, but definite, shooing motion.

As a toddler, Joe was affectionately called a “space invader” for wanting to hug and touch everyone, especially me. As a single mother, I nursed him until he was 2. Then he became a 33-pound growth affixed to my hip, and finally a sleepwalking child who found his way into my room almost every night for years. In between the moments of treasured closeness, I often got pawed when I needed a little space.

Then we traded places, and it was Joe who needed space.

I accepted this as a normal part of his growing up. But it wasn’t just that I no longer got affection from my child; I also hadn’t been touched by a lover in years. Having this month to myself with Joe at camp was the perfect opportunity to remedy that, but there were no contenders. I was tired of futile attempts with online dating, and my free time wasn’t worth risking.