Into “the convulsion of the world”

When my son leaves for college in a few weeks, he’ll travel roughly 25 miles up the road to Denton, a short 35-minute drive from the house he’s lived in all his life.

Why, then, does it seem like an immeasurable gulf is looming between him and his parents?

Ethan is raring to go. Truth is, he was ready for the departure months and months ago. He’s a quiet kid, doesn’t say much around folks he doesn’t completely trust, which for the past several years have included his father and mother. But I look at him and I see someone living on the edge of his seat, itchy to get on with it, to get started on the next phase of his life, to do it now.

I remember the feeling. I was a stranger in my parents’ house for years before I loaded my ’63 Dodge Polaris with everything I cared about and left for college. My parents had pressured me to attend the local community college to save money, so by the time I made my break, I was vibrating with anticipation. I knew when I pulled away from the curb that I’d never be back except for school holidays.

Mindful of that, I’ve tried to put myself in my son’s shoes, to consider things from his perspective, to give him the space to discover himself that my parents unthinkingly never gave me. I’d like to avoid, if I can, instilling in him the deep-seated,  mostly hidden anger I felt when I finally – dear God, finally – got the hell out of West Texas and said “Howdy” to world beyond.

I think I’ve succeeded in that. I’d like to believe that a lifetime as a professional journalist has given me some insight into human nature. But who the hell knows what’s really going on behind my son’s brooding eyes or what the meaning is in the twisted smile he carries on his face most of the time?

Perhaps he really means it when he throws his arm around my shoulders and tells me he loves me. Surely I can’t be fooled about that. Can I? Perhaps he’s only playing a little game with his old man, telling me what I want to hear while he plots his get-away.

Regardless, I hope, as all parents in this situation do, that his mother and I have managed to drill some valuable life lessons through his thick skull. Where could this kid have gotten his stubbornness? I don’t have a clue.

Thankfully, he has a good heart, and he’s a kind and generous person when he occasionally lowers the shield of aloofness and coolness with which he protects himself. He lacks much empathy, it’s true, but what 18-year-old doesn’t? And I wish he weren’t such a slob, although I vaguely remember being a slovenly wretch too at his age. Perhaps he will grow out of it or, more likely, fall for a girl who won’t put up with it.

Lord, I still remember the knot of excitement and anxiety that filled my stomach on the day I left for North Texas State University. I may have leaked a tear or two as I watched Big Spring grow smaller and smaller in my rear-view mirror.

Mostly, my gaze was directed straight ahead, into the future, my future, into what Robert Penn Warren called in the closing lines of his great novel, All the King’s Men,  “the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.”

Shortly, when I consign my youngest into the “convulsion of the world,” I’ll have another knot in my stomach, I’m sure. This time it won’t be fueled by excitement and anxiety, but by deep sorrow. I will try to hide that from my son, who will be oblivious, as he should be, to the pain his departure poses for his mother and father.

He will be focused, as I was so many years ago, on the horizon before him, on the history he must write for himself, on the life he must build on his own. Eagerly and without fear, he must confront – as I did and countless other departing sons and daughters have – “the awful responsibility of Time.”