I spent yesterday taking one of my sons back to college. It's a drive of a couple of hours, a few hours there unloading the car and visiting Target, and the drive home.
It was a hard day for me. My son is excited about getting back to school and looking forward to a new housing situation, an apartment with three other young men from his high school -- a major step up from the sardine-packed dorm lifestyle of freshman year. He has more room in a bedroom to himself this year than four of them had for their two bunk beds last year. With a kitchen, perhaps he will eat better and stay healthier than he did last year, after having pronounced the cafeteria food disgusting and given up his food plan for subsistence meals of fast food and drugstore sandwiches. And it looks as if he and his roommates will get along well.
But I am deeply affected by my surroundings, and I find his depressing. Having had most of my own educational experiences at small and beautiful New England liberal arts colleges, or approximations thereof, I have no affinity whatever for the huge and nondescript midwestern university campus. The off-campus housing I remember, while hardly representative of the lifestyle of the rich and famous, was usually found in (very) modest residential areas, with some semblance of landscaping. My son and friends are living in a concrete complex that surrounds a tiny concrete courtyard, already littered with soda and beer cans.
I think that the most depressing aspect of the whole situation for me is that he doesn't seem to notice or care. I tell myself that it's just part of late adolescence -- kids this age are able to handle just about anything with equanimity. Or maybe it's just that as they grow up and away, they don't make choices that coincide with my own -- of schools, studies, living arrangements, how they spend their free time -- and I know that my daughter is next in line.
I'm at the computer because I have just finished writing an extremely academic paper on the topic of being attentive to life as we live it. That's what I have to remember: to be attentive and appreciative of the experiences that are, rather than longing for the ones that are not.
Walked: 4 miles.
5 comments:
Hello, I saw your post on "Hestia's" site. You've got a wonderful journal. I too am moving to middle age--youngest son a junior in college. I teach at the university and am a writer. I've forgotten, though, how to write academic papers on being attentive to life--I write stories instead! Keep up the good work on your journal.
Thanks for leaving a comment on my journal---I love that site. There is always something refreshing and insightful on it.
My oldest is about two years away from college--yikes!! I can't think about it yet...
I think it's not too surprising that your tastes differ from your son's...he is, after all a young MALE of the species... Lisa :-]
Sorry you're feeling sad. I agree with you--I don't think that kids even notice their surroundings unless they are truly unhappy. I hope he has a wonderful time. Where did you go to school in NE?
I find that campus singularly ugly myself, I can't say that I ever saw the whole thing, but what I saw was just ugly. But please don't damn all midwestern campuses, I think U of M has a lovely campus!! I never lived on or even near campus, so I can't comment on that aspect.
I had to get my bearings when you said you were taking him back to school, it seems like school has been going on forever here, I forget how late they start back up there. I hope he has a great year. I will miss our opportunities to meet for coffee, though!
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