Autumn Adjustment

There's a hint of fall in the air—chilly nights (and mornings) and crickets singing like there's no tomorrow (which, for crickets, is kind of true). It's a tough time of year, when everyone else is rhapsodizing about wool sweaters and wood stoves and I'm on my knees, begging for just one more day—or week or month—of 80 degree weather.


A little over two weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning, C and I dropped E and Z off at their new bus stop for their first day of high school, then kept on driving till we got to M's college. There we moved his bike, his guitars, his crate of Adidas, his duffels of clothes, his extra long sheets, his hot pot and clip-on fan and lights and, of course, him into his tiny new dorm room. We spent the day on campus doing all the things they had arranged for move-in day, then we left M to his new friends and neighbors for a week of orientation, picked E and Z up from cross-country practice, and came home.

I was a little anxious for the twins, because the first day of high school is an anxious time, but I was just happy dropping M off, excited for all the opportunities that await him, and, to tell the truth, a little jealous that they didn't offer those opportunities when I was in college. But over the next few days, when I'd think about needing to turn on the porch light for M, or when I'd drive in the driveway and look for a third car, I slowly came to the realization that he's not just at school or drama practice or work or a housesitting job, he's really and truly gone, and in the quiet left behind by his absence, I missed him. 

It's hard, when someone is a part of your everyday existence for 18+ years, for him to be gone all of sudden (even though it's not really all that sudden, but rather a slow, slow peeling away).
Fortunately, he's just around the corner, and he joined me for his brothers' cross-country meet last week, then we all went out to dinner. We got to hear all about his new adventures and E and Z got to tell him about their new adventures. Then we dropped him off at his dorm and drove home through the early dark of an autumn evening to our quiet, quiet house.

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