A new schedule!

My wife and I have a schedule. She races off in the morning to school. I work from home. We do our own thing and then later in the evening we come back together. We’ll sit across from each other, both exhausted, but glad to see each other.

We’re like many other couples.

We’ll chat for a few minutes. She’ll show me the colorful picture of a rainbow that a little girl in her class drew for her. She’ll point to a stick figure character with medusa-like hair in the center of the picture and tell me that it’s supposed to represent her, while the smaller figure beside her is her student. I’ll tell her about the text I got from a former coworker who was checking in on me. We’ll talk about our highs and lows and how our day went. We’ll talk about whether we’re going to go to the trouble of making something for dinner or whether we’re going to cheat and eat out. Since cooking always feels like work to me, I always offer to pick up food.

And then we have a week like last week. Our schedule was haywire. If it was anymore out of whack, we would have ended up in a different state. It was like a mini-tornado had touched down in our house. Crazily enough, though, we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

A jumbled calendar

The tornado was our youngest son. He spent a few days of his Spring Break hanging out with friends at another college in South Carolina and then spent the rest of the week home with us. Okay, let me be honest, it wasn’t really a tornado. It was like a wave of happiness spread throughout our house. It was great to have him home.

My wife and I would be watching some show that we’ve been dying to watch. He’d come downstairs and we’d instantly pause it. If he wanted to talk, we were all ears. If he just wanted to grab some comfort food, we were up for that too. If he wanted to chill by himself, we were fine with that too. We were just glad to have him home.

When we did talk though, it was the best. We chatted like he’s here all the time. We chatted about school. He gave us a rundown on what his friends are up to. He talked about his classes, what he’s thinking of taking next fall and an internship he’s got planned.

The conversation was natural. He told us about how he wants to travel to the four-day Lollapalooza music festival again in Grant Park in Chicago this summer. We reminded him about the beach trip we have planned for July.

We talked silly things like the NCAA March Madness and NFL Free Agency. We talked occasionally about President Trump and the news out of Washington, D.C., but we kept it light. (If only folk would listen to my son. I’m pretty sure we’d be in a heck of a better spot than we are right now.)

Back to your regularly scheduled programming

We mainly just chilled. I loved hanging with my three kids when they were toddlers or in elementary school. It was a great time, teaching them right from wrong and teaching them the ways of the world. But, it’s eye opening to me to see how much I enjoy spending time with them as adults. I never expected that I would get as much enjoyment out of it as I do.

I find I do less talking. I often like to just soak it all up. And sometimes, they’re the ones teaching me. Yes, I still worry about them, but it’s neat seeing the exciting things they have going on in their life.

So, early on Saturday morning, my son packed up the car, gave us hugs and then headed back to school. The house is back to being just my wife and myself. It’s back to school and work. We miss him, but it’s good to know that he’s not too far away.

He’ll be back home in a few weeks.

“We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.” –Vera Lynn