Worry less. Your children remain your children, even if they leave home for awhile. I let my story "Born Again, with Water" lie unfinished for nineteen years, from 1980 to 1999. I finished it and rewrote it twice, and it turned out reasonably well. (It's one of the items in Cold Hands.) I began "Drumlin Wheel" in 2002 and got blocked after the first scene. It wasn't until 2006 that I picked it up again and decided it was viable, and it took another four years' worth of fits and starts before I completed it.

It may be less fair to ask "Is the story still mine?" in these cases than to ask, "Have I changed too much to remain its author?" Stories are not the only things that may be considered "works in progress."