Roominess

Nathan has been home from grad school for spring break this week, and it has reminded me of an offhand comment he made in August after his successful garage sale. I should back up and say that the garage sale was preceded by the most massive room cleaning he had done since (maybe) the 5th grade. Let me describe it this way: the floor in his room became visible!

He got rid of three electronics systems, his Magic the Gathering cards, various speaker systems, a fancy calculator he needed for high school math, stuffed animals, clothing, books... in short: he got rid of substantial parts of his past.

And, at the end, he made this statement: "Every time I come home from now on, I will clean up one more drawer or shelf in my room until it's all clear so you can reuse the room."

We were taken aback, needless to say. Not only by his resolve, but also by his suggestion that we would actually move on, that we would re-use his room. Of course, we had secretly imagined this, but we had never said anything to him!

And now, seven months later, Nathan is on his second visit home since then. And he hasn't done any subsequent cleaning.

This is actually an interesting convention, this "visit home" language. I remember it from when I was his age. I had stopped thinking of my parents' home as my home rather abruptly even before I went off to college, because they had moved away from my childhood home in the middle of my senior year of high school. So, on my trips back to see them during and after college, I was always very clear to make the distinction that I was going to see my parents, and not going home.

Nathan's growing up has been different from mine in any number of ways, as you might imagine. Certainly one of these is that his parents have continued to live in his old house, in his home town, even as he has left to go to college, and now to go on to graduate school. We are his home base.

Nathan still says he is coming "home," and I think he still feels that way. It's also true that he has started onto a road of undetermined length toward creating another home. He is now living, for the first time, with someone he loves, his girlfriend Alisa.

So, one day maybe he'll stop thinking of this as his home. Or maybe he'll be a person who makes room for more than one home in his big heart. I really don't know how it works for someone who gets to take his or her own time with this particular transition. But, somehow, I think it will be relatively easy, because Nathan is so at ease with it all. And he's in the lead.