It's The Most Wonderful Time...NOPE!
This is the first year in a very long time that I'm not skipping around the house pretending I'm the person in the Staples "It's the most Wonderful time of the Year" commercial. (BTW, whoever created that commercial is a genius). In fact this year I'm feeling downright low. You see, I'm sending my first off to University...and it's a big friggin' deal. If you've done it, you know it is - because you've told me. And if you haven't done it yet - I'm not sure there is anything that can prepare you for the days leading up to 'move in' day. Except maybe if you have a good friend that tells you where to buy the twin xl sheets. You know who you are. ;)
My son is going to be living in a 'suite style' dorm in a private room with three room mates. The unit has a small kitchen area where they can prepare their meals. You see...all the boys in the room have food allergies and can't be accommodated by the meal plan, like most first year students. This has added an extra layer of stress to sending him off. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not worried about his anaphylaxis, I've taught him very well - he know's how to cook safety for himself. I'm worried that I haven't adequately supplied his 'suite style' room. I know...my priorities are in the right place!
Over the past few weeks I've found myself souring the internet for any videos or images of the type of room he'll be living it at residence. Does he has drawers? If not, where will he put his socks? Is there space on his desk for a printer? They say a printer is essential. Should he pin up a family photo? Or is that goofy once you're eighteen? Do you I even have a family photo printed. I better get a photo printed. Does his bathroom come with a shower curtain? Will it leak and turn the floor into a lake? If it does, do they have a mop? Should I bring a mop or maybe just a Swiffer? If I bring a Swiffer, should it be the Wet Jet or combination wet and dry. The floor will get dusty too. I saw my girlfriend in Canadian Tire yesterday and guess what she had in her cart? Yep...Swiffer, now I can't stop thinking about his need for a Swiffer. Another girlfriend I bumped into said "don't forget hand soap and a bath mat for their bathroom" - fuckity fuck...hand soap of course, or he'll never wash his hands and the bath mat will help with leaky shower curtain - right? I know what you're thinking right now. They'll have hand soap in the big communal bathroom that twenty kids share. Nope! My son gets to share a bathroom with just one of his room mates. Finally the allergies have a small payoff! So yes, I guess I'd better go and get the hand soap and bath mat.
All this to say if you think of anything I'm missing - please let me know!
This is a sad and exciting time for them and for us. We have prepared them the best we could and now we must let them fly. Good luck friends, I'll be thinking of you.
Breathe...
Vicki
ox.
P.S. I've been told to leave my sunglasses on, so the tears aren't so obvious.
WALKING AWAY - Cecil Day Lewis
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
