The Boys

    Going to visit the boys tomorrow! Flying to Charleston, South Carolina for a week, where my younger son is a senior in college. My older son is driving down to meet us for a few days.

    We're so excited to see them. It's been since January, which of course, is the longest we've ever gone without seeing them. 

    Charleston is a charming U.S. city in the south, near the water. It's got historic architecture, a true walkable center (like London), hot weather and nice beaches nearby -- pretty ideal spot for an American vacation.

     It's weird to think we're seeing our kids like this on vacation. Usually, college kids come home, flop on the couch, open the fridge door half a dozen times, and soon, it's like nobody ever graduated from high school. Everyone just back to old patterns. 

     This is going to be different. We're going to be in a hotel and our sons are going to stay together at our youngest's apartment. They're really looking forward to seeing each other too, since it's been awhile for them as well, and they've always been close.  

     So how have they been without us? Has it been terrible for them that we've abandoned them?

     Actually no.  

     I think I'd have to say that for our eldest son, 23, it's actually been better that we haven't been there. He took on responsibilities in the family's finances that he wouldn't have, had we stayed. That was good for him, he did it well, and it felt grown up all around. We feel more comfortable knowing he knows more about how everything runs for us as a family. 

    He's thinking more creatively about what's next for him now too. More than he would have had he had the option of going home, we think. And ultimately, that's better for him.

    He didn't want to go back and live in his old room, even temporarily. He was pretty sure about that. And now, he may decide he doesn't even want to go back to where we were, although he can. That's up to him. There's a whole world out there. It'd be nice -- for us and for him -- if he came this way somewhere, at least for awhile.  

    For my younger son, it's been more complicated. He hasn't been able to come home to flop on the couch, and that makes me feel terribly guilty. Lots of his old friends are home now. He just went back to where we were, just for a couple days, and stayed with a friend. I asked him if he had driven past our old house. He hadn't. Boys are less sentimental than girls. 

    He had already planned to stay in Charleston this summer, the last summer of college. And why not? Charleston is a great place to be in the summer, more fun than where we lived frankly, for a boy of 21 (and maybe an old lady of 55 too). And he's got a job -- and a girlfriend. A lot of his college buddies decided to stay too. 

    So I guess I have to admit that it's been much worse for me than it has for them. It hasn't even been bad for them, if I have to be savagely honest about it. 

    Anyway, it'll be so great to see them tomorrow afternoon! My god. They're going to pick us up at the airport. I cannot wait.  

    We've missed them so much. They've missed us a lot too.   

    Absence does always makes the heart grow a little fonder, doesn't it?

   

     

   American Expat Wife will continue from Charleston, with perhaps only a one-day hiatus on Tuesday for flying. Otherwise, every day, Monday-Friday.