Well, we did it, and now we are three.
Our days as the “new gang of four” are over. It will take a while to get used to that. Restaurants and grocery stores and camping equipment vendors will have to get used to it too: “Just three, please.”
While we didn’t exactly get the bum’s rush out of my son’s brand-new dorm room at college, there was a point when definitely we had worn out our welcome – about 10 minutes after we had finished lugging 50,000 pounds of dorm-room “essentials” up five flights of stairs.
My oldest stood commandingly before the windows and the spectacular view from his posh Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, address and said: “Well, I guess you better be heading back now. …”
I got the point. Oh yes, it’s my job to drive for more than four hours, with a couple of whiny smelly kids, back to the hovel on the hill and you just stay here and relax in your brand-new palace.
He can occupy himself with thoughts of a whole year of exciting adventure and study, safe in the knowledge that all meals are paid for, a new computer is coming, Boston is jampacked with potential friends and lovers from some 300 colleges and universities and, oh yes, an allowance. Yes, Dad, time to go. Bye, bye.
Do I sound bitter? I left that very city, and that very street some 30 years ago after my own four-year vacation in paradise. Then I went to work so he could do it too? Something is really wrong here.
I suppose I am not up to the challenge of college anymore, anyway.
Who wants to do all that racing from class to class, absorbing one fascinating concept after another? Who wants to stay up all night drinking beer and “talking” with a beautiful, interesting woman you just met? Who wants to open your eyes for the first time at 3 p.m. on a Sunday and know that there is yet another party starting up outside your door?
Not me. I like climbing the never-ending hill of laundry, raking leaves, cleaning the toilets and yelling, “We are not leaving this table until your report is finished” for the 70 billionth time.
I didn’t do much crying on the way home. I was sad about how our lives would change, but it made me wonder if there might not be some advantages.
When I walk by his room, will it be clean for weeks at a time? Whatever will I do at 3 a.m., when no one is playing the piano and singing at the top of his lungs downstairs? I wonder what it will be like to get into the van and not have to push aside a pile of dirty clothes and ancient fast food bags? I could get used to this.
However, even though one of my children doesn’t live here anymore, I still have to include him in all the year’s planning. That is what I am doing today, combining school calendars from three schools, doing the final checks on the backpacks of people who do not live on ritzy Commonwealth Avenue, and thinking about this week’s dinners. We still have to eat, and those who remain behind don’t have a handy cafeteria.
Tomorrow, No. 2 son needs to be out the door by 7 a.m. Socks must be located. The next day No. 3 has to be ready by 8:15 a.m. Will I talk him into a haircut, or are we going as shaggy red mop man?
I was considering my plan of attack for the haircut when my son said:
“Summer seemed to go so fast!”
“That’s because you slept through it!”
That’s another thing that changes with school: From 6 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. there will be no more quiet cups of coffee on the deck, just mayhem and shoving people out the door every morning.
Yet I will get the days to myself again, free to spend the long hours as I choose. Doing laundry, cleaning, endless errands and, of course, dreading homework.
