Signs

Looking back, Diary, I know there were signs. Ones that I would’ve paid more attention to, if there were time to give great amounts of thought to the future.

Not long after we had moved 500 miles away, Spawn and I sat on the couch after dinner to watch a little television. He was good company for watching sitcoms. We have the same sense of humor and always laugh at the same scenes. But this particular night, after the first show, he stretched his 12-year-old arms a little, like it was no big deal, and said, “I think I’ll go in my room.” Innocent enough, at the time, but it turned into a nightly thing. Eventually (kindness on his part, if I choose to look at it like that, which I do), he dropped the pretense of sitting on the couch with me in the first place. No more downtime together. Sure, we’d talk in the car, at dinner, about schedules and school things, but the best times of doing nothing together were officially over.

Not long after that, Spawn had a holiday from school. When we were scheduling that week's activities, I casually mentioned that I could take that day off from work and we could make it a long weekend. As he stomped out of the room, he spewed, "Fine, just RUIN my day off!" And meant it.

The biggest sign was more of a blow, really. We were discussing whether I would move the summer before he would start college. We had just gotten home from voting – his first time. We were renting the house we were living in and it was big for the two of us, not to mention expensive. I could save money if I moved to a smaller place in another part of town. But, that would put me farther away from his summer job and friends for when he was home. Finally, he put a stop to the whole dilemma by saying, “You have got to stop basing all your decisions on me. I’m going to be in Bloomington.” I would never have let him see me cry nor let him know that I had no idea how to make decisions based on me.

There were more signs, of course, but these were the ones I remember most, Diary. Probably because they still make me the soggiest.

The Time Has Come

I thought I was home free. Only two weeks to go, and I really haven’t felt all that emotional. Until yesterday, that is, when he cleaned his room.

He has had a summer project to organize and purge, which he did and ended up with a pick-up truck full of stuff to donate and three lawn and leaf size bags of stuff to throw away. I saw little soccer and t-ball trophies poking out of one bag, but when I went to comment on not throwing his entire past away, he jumped down my throat for backpedaling.

The purging didn’t even hit me, because his room still looked like it belonged to the kid I’ve known for years.

Then, he had to go and clean it. Bed made. Clothes on hangers. Posters off walls. No junk on the computer desk or the nightstands or the armoire. No dishes or wrappers on the floor. Carpet! Hell, there were vacuum tracks.

There’s a song out there somewhere about a father who just sits in his daughter's room after she leaves. But I can’t go in there. There’s a floodgate that I’m pretty sure would take all of freshman year to plug. And I need to work.

I think I’ll make him start closing the door, though, because I know it’s just going to get worse from here, and I have a feeling I already may be taking it pretty hard.