Still looking for the answers ~ August 29, 2002

David Heiller

That weekend, I am sure Noah 
would have rather been fishing.

Are you all packed up?” I asked my son on Sunday morning. “Yeah, I guess,” he said with his customary enthusiasm.

“Did you make a list?”

“No, I don’t need a list,” he said with disdain. I’m a list person when it comes to packing for a big outing like a canoe trip. And this was a big outing, even bigger than that. He was moving to a dormitory and going away to college.

I could tell he was nervous about it, the way he snapped at me, so I let it go, and a few others like it. Pick your battles, I say.

I probably did the same thing to Mom and my sister when I went off to college in 1971. I can still remember that car ride to the University of Minnesota, my sister chattering to keep me from getting too scared. Like I was chattering with my son on Sunday.

It didn’t help much. I still had to go into the dorm, sign at the desk, get a key, go up to the seventh floor, and meet two strangers, my roommates. It wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to do it. Like taking a slug of awful-tasting medicine.

Noah and his easy smile.

We found the dorm on Sunday, after a few detours and dead-ends. The key into the room didn’t work, so a girl had to come down from another dorm and give us a new one.

“This is a really nice room,” Cindy said as she bustled around. I was about to say that it felt like a prison cell, but she was quick to add, “Isn’t it, David?” and I had to agree. Yes, it is a great room.

My son and I made the top bunk, where he would sleep. Cindy and I helped him put a few things away. “I can do that,” he kept saying. So most of his belongings stayed in their crates and boxes. His sense of order is different than ours, to put it politely. It was stupid to think that this would suddenly change because he was in a dormitory. Sudden changes aren’t part of the natural order.

So we said our good-byes, me with a hand-shake, Cindy with a hug. Then it was down to the car, just the two of us. The car was empty, and so were we. That’s something we’ll have to get used to.

First day  of kindergarten.

Mom must have felt the same way those three decades ago. Something had come to an end. I was scared for my son. Worried about how he would do, if he would make it. But sure that he had to try it, had to get away from home.

We leave home in many different fits and starts. Some people seem to be able to do it with barely a glance back. Some barely leave at all. Some people are just plain independent. Others are just the opposite.

Leaving home is a big part of the journey in finding out who you are. It can lead to all kinds of adventures, from foreign countries to a home in rural Minnesota. From a scared college kid, to a worried parent. All these things keep changing.

I’d like to say that it is easy, that you can do it without butterflies in your stomach and clashes with your roommates. But it doesn’t work that way for too many people.

I put some of this into words to my son, but it came off as mostly boring advice from the land of bland. Like most of life, he’ll have to figure it out for himself. If we have done our job, he probably will, although it may take a while. I’m still working on it after 31 years.