The Laundromat

It's been a rough senior year for me. My son graduated high school but it wasn't smooth sailing. We had the girlfriend, stupid decisions, missing schoolwork more than once and then "I am 18 now so I am an adult" attitude. I tried very hard not to laugh when he said this. But the kid graduated with an advanced diploma, picked up a ton of AP credit along the way, endeared himself the his principal and the entire school and we all breathed a sigh of relief, for a while. The girlfriend is still in his life and I would be a wonderful patient if Sigmund Freud was still around. It's really the stupid decisions he has been making that were getting to me.

This past weekend, the girlfriend was here. Ben had a few graduation parties to go to and instead of going with the girlfriend (who didn't go to his high school), he went by himself to drop off gifts and came back. Then there was the one we were invited to as well as Ben. We went ahead and told the girlfriend, "See you at the party!" Ben showed up by himself. "Where's Molly?" I asked. I told him to go get her. Really! What's up with that? He went home (a 5 minute trip) and called me to tell me that I made her feel uncomfortable. I don't know how but he told me that she had to go home and was late. Fine. The party was for his friend, not him or his girlfriend. Neal and I had a wonderful time and Ben went into the city to his girlfriend's house. He stayed there until this morning.

I was a bit apprehensive about how we were going to relate to each other. I was mad. He was mad. I feel that we need to have some family time together. This is the summer where he is the only child in the house. Elijah is at camp. I told him that we were going to go to the laundromat and do his wash. This child, who I sometimes think came from a family of pigs, hadn't done his laundry in ages. We had 4 giant bags as well as 2 hampers full. We took the bags to the laundromat so that we could do them all at once

and filled 5 triple loaders and one double loader. Then we sat and chatted like old times. After we were done, I took him out for a bite to eat. Maybe the laundromat was the place we needed to relieve the tension and anger that was building up between us? The tension of his upcoming departure to college (it makes me happy and sad at the same time) and the anger that he listens to the girlfriend more than to us, his parents. (normal yet frustrating). The laundromat "washed" our bad feelings away. We're starting anew. Fresh. Clean. Wrinkle-free. It was a good day at the laundromat.