Soapbox

Well, he’s gone. For now, at least.

We packed the van last night and early this morning we headed off in the drizzle (that turned to a downpour) and took Steve to college. Yes, that day that I thought might never come when he was 5 years old and crying on his first day of kindergarten because the teacher made him leave his new crayons at school- has come indeed.

At first we sort of fell into this whole "Steve is going to O.U." thing when we were checking out scholarship opportunities. I never expected Steve to go there just because it is the school I attended, but it did make a certain amount of sense, being neither too close nor too far away, not overwhelmingly huge like OSU and in a town filled with relatives he can be with if he gets lonely. He seemed to warm to the idea and said he felt ready to step up from the relatively safe world of Community College to the real deal, and the next thing I knew he was the proud owner of a Dean’s List scholarship and registering for classes at Ohio University. Suddenly, there was nothing left to do but pack.

Of course I started getting ready months ago, making mental and then actual shopping lists. I collected a few sturdy boxes in the garage and began filling them with the stuff I thought he would need: garbage bags, first aid kit, lightbulbs, towels and sheets and, of course, for a boy’s dorm room: a closet deodorizer. Early this week I tried to prod the boy himself into taking part in the packing of his life, going through the stuff I had already assembled and suggesting that while I was at work he might want to pack up CD’s, books and posters that he wished to take. But every day I would come home and find he had done basically nothing. 2 nights before we were due to leave, I marched down the basement to where he was watching television and said, "Steve, do you really want to arrive at college Friday knowing that your Mommy packed your stuff?"

He looked up from South Park with an utterly bland expression on his face and said, "I’m fine with that, actually" and then grinned. Clearly he inherited his packing instincts from his father and not me, as he decided Thursday afternoon that he was ready, at last, to toss a few things in a bag for our Friday departure.
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