Sayonara

Japan is pretty fantastic.  You know I'm working hard to recognize the amazing opportunity living in Tokyo has been/is/will continue to be, but I confess that just now it feels like nothing more desirable than a move to the moon. (A moon to which blessed Amazon.com will ship.  I have come to really, truly, deeply love Amazon.com since moving here.  I mean, I would happily go steady with Amazon, and wear his class ring on a gold chain around my neck. A gold chain I bought through Amazon.) 

My oldest child has left to go to college back in the States, which is wonderful and good and right for this time in his life, but dang! I am so far away! His dad is there helping him buy what he needs and getting him settled in the dorms and all that, but we had to pick only one of us to be there, and I wasn't the winner. Granted, this was probably a wise decision even if we lived right down the block.  I would have spent the whole time bawling and telling strangers cute stories about how clever he was when he was a baby, embarrassing us both forevermore. But still--I'm not there.  I don't get to see him walking around on campus, or go to parents' weekend, or sneak up and lean a ladder against his window and climb in and hold him while he obliviously sleeps, like in that book we used to read when he was a toddler.  That book never had a picture of horrified college roommates watching this spectacle, now that I think about it. 

Hoo, boy!  Enough of that train of thought, or I’ll be crying my eyes out just like that darned book used to make me do. I am so happy for him, and amazed and proud of the great person that sweet toddler has grown to be. It's a little surreal to remember going through these same preparations for myself only a “few” years ago.  I was excited and scared and really felt like a little fish in a big pond, but wouldn’t change that whole experience for anything. The highs and lows, the late nights, the exam weeks, the new friends, the weird dates, the weird professors (but no weird dates with weird professors).  It was all amazing. Grab hold of this time, son, and squeeze everything you can from it. We'll be cheering you on from way over here, on the moon.