It's late, so I'll let my hair down

Nobody ever does anything the easy way in my family. From the outside, you might think we lead a pretty semi-charmed kind of life, and in a way we do. We have a house, some cars and enough to eat. But what you see isn't always what you get. I always wanted to have extraordinary children. A mother should be careful what she wishes for, or at least look up the meaning of the word extraordinary. Strange, odd, bizarre, and unexpected are lurking in the definition of extraordinary along with amazing and astonishing. I forgot to read the small print in the dictionary is all, but by then it was too late. I have three extraordinary children.

The youngest, a girl, attends college in Chicago where she studies Nursing and goes to a Second City workshop on the weekends. It seems that the one Humanities class she took was Acting and she was noticed by her acting professor as having "talent and honesty." I knew all that teenage girl-drama would not go to waste. She and I get along most of the time--at least I get along with one of her personalities. She can be the most intellectual, compassionate companion one minute and an insufferable ball of emotion the next. My favorite quote from my daughter: "You don't know what it is to be a girl, Mom, you are cold like a man." (Hey guys, I feel your pain.)

My middle son is nicknamed The Closer. He is a no-bullshit guys' guy, Homecoming king, fraternity president. All his life he has taken on more and more responsibility in his never-ceasing quest to "clear the family name." (Wait for it.) He is a senior at Miami of Ohio University in the quaint little town of Oxford, Ohio. He has an beautiful girlfriend who wants to be an English teacher. (Oedipus, anyone?) He is currently searching for a job that will allow him to settle in a different town than his parents. My favorite quote, spoken after he enrolled at IPFW for a summer class: "My communications class is like the United Nations--let's face facts Mom, at Miami, everyone pretty much looks like me."

My oldest. His life will make a great play someday. Once a student in all of the "gifted" classes, his best friend destined to be the school valedictorian, he gave that path up in his pursuit of alternative methods of consciousness. He is "taking a break" from college as he tries to "figure things out" in that infamous institution--the School of Hard Knocks. Rehab in Minnesota led him to his current occupation as the sous chef at the Palomino Restaurant in Minneapolis. He sleeps on a futon in a house he shares with two ex-bicycle messengers and a very well-behaved pit bull named Teenie. My favorite quote (although picking a favorite is very elusive): "Mom, you were a nerd in high school, you don't know what it means to be popular."

The house is empty now except for my spouse of 27 years and two 1-year old Puggles. The kids are in three different states, but their spirits can be heard occasionally yelling down the hallways or laughing in the basement. People ask if my life is too quiet now, and I say quiet? "What is that--I see 125 teenagers every day." I know this isn't really delving into the "cracks" of my own life, but it might help to understand how I feel spread out--pulled into geographical areas that I don't occupy. I am haunted by words.