You Can Go Home Again

I made a point of sitting down with my son within the first few minutes of the time he came home for Thanksgiving break. He came home on a Tuesday afternoon, and so I knew that the clock was ticking until the next Sunday when he would be heading back down the coast to return to his regularly scheduled program. I knew that if I didn't get my parental licks in before he packed up his clean laundry that I might not have a chance. I commenced to deliver Daddy Monologue Number Seventeen, during which I attempted to address any and all concerns we might be having with the continuing status quo with our college freshman. For the record, I did let him get a word in edgewise. I am truly invested in the progress we are making as a family on this whole college thing. I'm just not abundantly clear on how to go about that.
So I talked. I asked questions. None of them were particularly difficult. I wanted to know how things were going in school. And I wanted to know about his personal life. How was he getting along? Was there anything we could do to help out?
The answer? Refreshingly, it turns out that we were doing pretty good when it came to keeping a respectful distance. We had spent last year fretting over how we were going to keep him moving and succeeding, with the eventual acceptance to the college of his choice. A year ago, we were talking about all kinds of options, including a gap year, where he would have wandered the highways and byways while he tried to sort out just exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up.
As it turned out, we didn't have to use that option. At the moment that all seemed darkest, that letter of acceptance appeared in our collective email and there was a corresponding collective sigh of relief. Another chapter was being written. Now we find ourselves in the middle of this new adventure, wondering just how we would all come together again when we did.
And we did. This was a few days of getting back together and sharing a few meals and watching him sleep. Some things haven't changed a bit. Some things have. He's older. Wiser. I guess that's what we get for sending him away to school. It was good to sit down with my son, even if it was for just a moment.