Amazing College Girl has now been gone for......oh, forget it, I'm just kidding. I'm not really counting the moments she has been gone. We've talked and e-mailed plenty and I am convinced she's doing well.
However, I have apparently entered a whole new social set, by default.
Since we live in a very small community (here in the Outer Islands of the United States), I see moms and dads downtown all the time who have entered The Club of Those That Wait Behind. I've seen people like us interact before, I've just never been a part of it.
Other Parent that Sees Me on the Street: "Hi, have you heard anything?" (This is the greeting that has now replaced "Hello." Sometimes interchangable with "How are you holding up?")
Me: Yeah, I got a cute e-mail yesterday
O.P: Really? He doesn't write, but he calls a lot---thank God for cell phones, huh?
Me: Yeah! You know she's been sick!
O.P.: No!! Really?? Already?? How did she do with that?
Me: I think she's going to be okay, but she didn't even feel well enough to go downstairs to get anything to drink!
O.P: Poor thing! It's not like being home is it?
Me and O.P both shake our heads knowingly.....
I have an encounter like that about every other day. I find myself transfixed with things like postage rates, (did you know it's cheaper to send a package UPS when it's sent to a business address?) I randomly collect small empty boxes and I've been known to swing by Dollar Tree with two or three dollars in my pocket, just to see what's there! (Wait, better scratch that last one, I've always done that.)
In a lot of ways it's fun. She called yesterday to say the guest speaker in Art lab was the guy who invented "Kid Pix." Kid Pix!!!!!!! The software program that changed her life back when she was a Delicate Blossom before she became a Delicate Flower! Probably led to her becoming an Art major! Who knew?!
Sometimes it's confusing. Should she come home and get her car, when it turns out all public transit is free to students in University City? But, what if she goes somewhere with a group of people and wants to come home early and is stuck because she's in their car? (Holy cow, did I just write come home early?)
And sometimes it's just lonely. Like tonight, when it's Friday night and her brother wants someone to drive him into Nearby City to get Donuts. (College Girl took him there right before she left. Teacher Husband and I just snorted when he brought it up tonight.)
Or, the fact that I will probably end up taking Thing Two to the movies to see the Bourne Whatever-it-is-This-Time. I don't really like those movies THAT much...but he's kind of lonely.
Just him, you understand.
Years ago I gave my friend a t-shirt after she had her second child. It was of a cow tipped over in a field, four legs straight up in the air, stiff as a board. The caption was: "Really, I'm fine. Really."
Just like me :)
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