Ordinary Time

Aidan the rising sophomore is home for the summer, after having 4-pointed his freshman year at Augsburg. Like Maggie, he has decided that living in one place makes more sense now that he’s in college. He stops in at his dad’s frequently, but my house is base camp. I am glad of the opportunity to know better what is going on in his life. 

 

The first weekend he is home we also host his new suite mate Alex, who lives in Tacoma, and whose plane does not depart until Monday – a polite young man, interested in music, but of yet undetermined major. I come home from work to find three Auggies on the couch watching TV – Aidan, Alex, and a girl I presume is Alex’s girlfriend, because he has his arm around her. Later, on the phone to Maggie, still in Ghana at the time, I make mention of this. “Oh, Mom,” she says, and I can practically see her eyes rolling over the phone. “That’s not Alex’s girlfriend. That’s Aidan’s girlfriend. Alex is gay.”

 

Nice of the African News Network to keep me informed.

 

I check in with my son. “Your suite mate is gay?”

 

“Well, really, two of my suite mates are gay. But they’re not, like, a couple.” He sees the look of surprise on my face, and a look of concern comes over his own. “You’re OK with that, aren’t you?”

 

“Sure,” I say. “Sure, I’m OK with that.” 

 

I try to explain to him that when he was born in 1989, we weren’t even sure we could name him Aidan. We were afraid he would be nicknamed AIDS.   

 

“I just didn’t know you had a lot of gay friends.”

 

“Well I didn’t in high school,” he says. “But at Augsburg they seem to have all the interesting conversations.”

 

Interesting conversations are important to Aidan. Interesting conversations, and books. And bands.  

 

He and his high school friends Chris and Chloe – with whom he has different kinds of interesting conversations - hear of an opportunity to be in a commercial for a new store, Discland. This is it - their 15 seconds of fame. 

The three of them go down on the appointed day, careful to wear the right T-shirts emblazoned with the right alternative bands, the ones that show their utter and complete, cutting edge coolness. They plan their patter, what CD or DVD they will pick up, what they will say. “You should listen to Track 2, man! It’s awesome!” 

When the commercial is done, it is posted on You-Tube. They appear for a split second in the beginning. “Gee, Mom. You can’t even read my shirt.”      

 

Aidan and I can go days and days without exchanging more than a hug and a few words, a cup of coffee shoved unceremoniously into a hand, a grunt of farewell between toothpaste spits from behind the bathroom door. We try to share a meal at least once a week, but between his schedule and mine, that can be a challenge. Occasionally we will have a Saturday or Sunday morning together out on the porch, an episode of the Daily Show together, some time playing with the nutsy cats. And some interesting conversation, often at unexpected times. 

 

The girlfriend from Augsburg, though she lived in Hopkins and was home for the summer, did not last very long. It seems none of the girlfriends at Augsburg has lasted very long.  After a few days a familiar face begins to reappear around our house – his high school girlfriend Chloe, now a junior. Chloe of the Discland commercial. They had broken up at the beginning of his freshman year, as high school sweethearts often do when college separates them. We’re just friends, I hear. But the body language begins to change in subtle ways, and when I come home to find them watching Fight Club on the couch, his arm is around her. I try out the word “girlfriend” again, with some trepidation. Can I be misinterpreting this too?  This prompts one of those unexpected conversations. 

 

“You called Chloe my girlfriend, Mom. Is that what it looks like?” 

 

“Well," I say cautiously.  "That’s what it looks like to me when a boy has his arm around a girl while they’re watching a movie. But I’ve been wrong before.” 

 

He grins. “No, I think you’re right this time.”

 

“You don’t know?”

 

“It’s just that I thought we were going to break up when I went to college, and we did, but I’ve been noticing that every girl I went out with afterwards, well they were nice girls and all, but I always found something wrong with them. It’s like I sabotage every relationship I’m in.”

 

A boy who talks about relationships. What a rare find. How did I give birth to such a boy?

 

“I think I still like Chloe more than anybody else. I think this might just last awhile.”  

 

“Well go for it boy,” I say.  I still like Chloe too.

 

It has been fun getting to know this kid again, and to learn what's going on in his life.