Year One is Finished

Tomtom has finished his first year at college. Well he finished a little while ago, but I am just getting to it now.

So he has been around a lot more. He is still a miracle to me, just like he was when he first sprang into existence all those years ago. He has changed but not like I expected he would. I thought he was going to come back all preachy and educated like I have seen happen to so many college freshmen. He has been through a phase like that already, when he was in junior high I was constantly being lectured about things like Eminem co-opting black culture and gaining mainstream acceptance a la Elvis Presley.

It was like I had suddenly become “The Man” and he was doing his best topple my hypocrisy and abuse of power. Of course despite all this talk of white privilege, I have a very limited ability to influence public opinion or policy much less radio stations like Live 105 and ask them to play more black artists. For the most part I was trying to make it through the day and pay the most important bills and avoid utility shut-offs. While enjoying the crazy privilege of owning a lot of books. Not that I don’t enjoy my books, just saying.

I expected another round of being informed of how unaware, selfish and just all around cog in the wheel I am but he is not like that at all.

He is this incredibly lovely, grown-up human-being. It is shocking. He shocks me.

It is little things too, like when he saw that I had placed the dog’s bowl in the weird utility like room with the cat’s box. He moved it, because it wasn’t fair to the dog. Since Miss Kitty does treat us all, esepecially the dog with incredible derision, it didn’t seem trivial to me. Just something that had escaped my attention.

He is so confident and grounded and he knows it. He was telling me how a friend of his commented on his self-possession, she said she could tell it was genuine as he was as comfortable being goofy and vulnerable with others.

“That is quite a compliment” I noted, “how did you respond?”

“I told her I know and I have a tremendously large ego to match my great confidence” He answered.

I looked at him, “Mom, she knows I was joking, well kind of”

“I think it is easy for me because I am like you in that people are drawn to me, and I am like my dad in that I don’t have a lot of investment in what other people think”

Which was weird because while not overt that was still a compliment to me, I think or an attribute that he credits me with delivering. I am not used to that, that is for sure.

Even when he was a little, little boy and people would comment on his cuteness, I would joke, “Yes, he gets his good looks from his mother” and he would shout back, “No, I get them from God!”

Oh he was such a cutie, I remember his asking me why, everywhere we go do people smile at us? He still sees the world that way and that makes me so happy. I think it was because people could see the love, and caring is a wonderful thing to see. Strangers would sometimes comment when he was a teenager, they would want to know how we were connected, was I his sister, his gag— girlfriend or what. When I would claim motherhood they would say that it was unusual to see a boy and his mom get on so well.

That is one of the benefits of being a young mom. An old friend of mine a school director told me that in all her years she noticed that their is a kind of magic between young moms and their sons.

We went to my gym together because Tomtom likes to play sports, and when you play sports at this level, it is like a full-time job. It seems like he is always training. So he had me do his coach’s workout which is very hard and I couldn’t really do, and is kind of ridiculous for me to be trying to do. It was fun though, because it was with him. He is so patient, and such a good teacher, a very encouraging person.

I could tell the other guys at the gym were trying to figure out what was up with the odd couple. He didn’t seem embarrassed or to care at all. Of course I am never embarrassed to be with him, I am such a smitten mother. Although I did get ditched for a more appropriate work out partner the next day.

He doesn’t get much time off though, because again with the sports, it is such a commitment.

It is funny too, because he remembers me being in college, he remembers to a fuzzy degree what I was like when I was his age. He tells me about girls at school that remind him of me. I am not used to him thinking of me as a person.

He asked me how poor were we really? I said I don’t know if there is a scale for that, but imagine having a baby with your resources now, it was like that. You know imagine you and Scout’s room with a baby in the middle, it was like that but it was me and Aunt Cara.

He laughed. He also doesn’t seem to know that Cara is not really his aunt.

I can’t help but see how well off he is emotionally, I mean beyond what I thought was possible for someone that age and think “I must have done something right” I haven’t had a lot of confidence in my ability to mother. I felt peculiarly resourceless and unsupported as a mother. I had big struggles in my life, but people don’t turn out as well as he has without getting some things right, really fundamental important things.

Oh I swoon. Of course I know life isn’t static and there are changes and challenges. Right now, he is so beyond what I expected I am going to enjoy that and allow for the possibilty life can be better than what I have known.

So here we are and I don’t know what we call it
‘Cause love is such a funny promise
Commitment is impossible and forever is a lie
But that still leaves you and I

Anything for you baby anything for you
If it took those years to get me here
I’d do it again for you

From “My Girlhood Among the Outlaws” by Maria McKee