 My 19-year-old son moved out this weekend. Goodbye full fridge and cable TV, hello Ramen and rabbit ears.
I knew it was coming (I first wrote about his plans here), but I could not have adequately prepared myself to walk across the hall from my bedroom and survey the barren space he vacated for the first time. (Said sentimental surveying took place after I dusted and vacuumed, of course.) I won’t lie, I was more than a bit verklempt. I’m grateful the move was Ethan’s decision and not a result of an ultimatum by a fed-up mother. A year ago, it nearly came to that, when I grew frustrated with his lack of direction (and lack of employment). No, we parted on the very best of terms, and I was glad to help make his transition as comfortable as possible. After several months of looking, he decided to share a house with two roommates downtown near the University of Louisville. It ain’t the Highlands, but it’ll do for a bachelor pad. The crib, as his generation calls it, is populated with torn couches, mismatched dishes and the former tenants’ residual dirt. The few window coverings throughout the house are sheets, and neither bathroom has a shower curtain yet. Ethan is so happy he can’t stand it.
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 I just got back from seven, blissful days in Florida. It’s going to take me a minute to re-acclimate to autumn temperatures and, well, the real world. I predict it will be at least Thursday before I stop wandering out onto my porch in a tank top, expecting an ocean view instead of the dying hostas and caladium in my front yard.
Truth be told, I hope I’m still surprised that my Highlands bungalow isn’t, in fact, oceanfront property all the way into December. I want this beach high to last until spring because I hate, hate, HATE the cold. I feel like Louisville got gypped out of summer, what with all the cool snaps and dang rain, so this trip sort of helped me to reclaim the final fragments of a season that ended too soon in my hometown. And speaking of trips and vacations, the two are not mutually exclusive in my book. A vacation out of town is a time to reflect, rejuvenate, overeat without remorse, soak up your surroundings and basically sit on your ass. A trip, on the other hand, is an excursion with an agenda, guided tours, scheduled stops and a frenetic pace. You go on a trip to Rome; you vacation at the beach. |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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