I'll Miss You Too

My 17-year-old son is a High School senior, and he's shopping for colleges. I joke with him all the time about going somewhere nearby. "Hey, this school looks good!" I say, about a school scarcely two miles away. We happen to live in the Boston suburbs, where every school "looks good" through a national, or even international lens. I say this kind of thing a lot.

I know he wants some distance from home, and I accept that. No, I respect that. I envy that. He wants, at least, to live more than two miles away from home, and who wouldn't?

My son and I recently traveled to Portland, Oregon to check out Reed College. Yes, that funky Pacific Northwest school where Steve Jobs famously attended for a semester or less before dropping out (and allegedly audited classes for an additional year). Moving to Portland would put quite a bit of distance between me and my little baby boy, but I took him because I know it's a respected school with a unique culture, and a unique teaching style. We attended the extended information session, cruised around the campus, and he even sat in on a bona fide class session. By the end of the day, I was completely won over, but he wasn't. At least not completely.

I am simultaneously envious of my son's situation, and grateful that I never had to deal with anything like what he's dealing with. For starters, I never took an SAT exam. No, for starters, I never took a PSAT. NO, for starters, I never even graduated high school. It's a long story. But suffice to say, even though I ended up with two Bachelor's degrees (in Music and Computer Science-ish), I never had to go through the rigorous process of evaluating multiple colleges and mustering the courage and fortitude to apply to them. I grew up in California, and I ended up at a local Santa Cruz school called Cabrillo College. I eventually transferred to UC Santa Cruz, and much later I got another degree at San Francisco State. I took the path of least resistance, and it made ... all the difference?

Meanwhile my son has done all the work. He has relatively stellar grades, has taken countless AP and honors courses, volunteers in the community, and is a generally chilled out, likeable dude. The only problem is now he has to cope with the typical college application process. I am not envious of that at all.

Tonight, after his grueling day of working on college applications, essays, and supplemental essays (what!?), I hugged him goodnight and joked with him: "If things don't work out, there's always Cabrillo College." He laughed, and reminded me how far away Cabrillo College is. "It's OK," I said. "I would love to have you stay close, but if going somewhere far is the right thing for you, then that's what you should do. I'll just miss you." I hugged him. "I'll miss you too, dad," he replied.