Twenty One

Boo turned twenty-one last week. It's not as bad as eighteen, really. Eighteen is when I realized he could enlist, acquire a tattoo sleeve, get married, be tried in court as an adult. He never received so much as a detention in school, but I sometimes hear about people with asperger's being misunderstood by other people or police. So that kept me awake a night or two. So twenty one? He can go to bars. Whatever. 

It's a little jarring for any parent to look at her baby and realize he's a legal adult.  But what I keep thinking about is how completely the world has changed.

In 1991, Bush I was in office, and  I couldn't  begin to conceive of more damning evidence of the devolution of the American character.  It was the end times, I was sure. The economy then was no better for Gen-Xers than it is for new grads now, but even though I sat on the tech committee at work, I never imagined how high tech would change our world.  Our friends gawped at the laptop and pager we acquired during the pregnancy, like we'd teleported them from the future. Popular music was cringeworthy. Female managers at my company were required to wear skirts and stockings - I mean, I wore stockings my whole pregnancy! My mind boggles at mandatory stockings more than anyone's birthday.

All that change and it was mostly good, wasn't it?  P leaves for college next year and every part of my life will change and, however scary it might be, I am determined to believe it will be mostly good. 

So, back to Boo's birthday. He and a bunch of friends (friends!) took cabs to a place that served drinks (drinks!)  and food and allowed his under-21 friends at the bar. The bill was hilariously low,  about a third of what I'd given him. Then they went back to the dorm for Batman cake and shots of rum from a bottle that someone had given him as a gift.  Happy birthday, miracle boy. 

True Blue

Right now I am working in another state. Not ideal since it's P's last year at home. I miss him fiercely. And although I'd grown used to being at home without  Boo, now that I'm away, I miss him all over again, too. The upside is, we talk more when I'm away and we IM a lot.  We IMed all election night.

I didn't make a big fuss of the two elections before Obama. From a liberal overprotective mother's POV, those administrations were the equivalent of snuff films. NSFW. NSFC.

But that night  in 2008 that I hoped Obama would be elected, I took them to an election party. The non-voters spent most of the night in a back room playing Rock Band and eating junk food. They came out for the returns, wearing their blue shirts and chanting OBAMA, and when they disappeared, most of our half-drunk beers had vanished. Who cared? I was texting with a friend from Belgium, an elderly woman danced around the room, my Russian friend celebrated her first election. So that was Boo's introduction to election night.

This year he was old enough to vote. We made sure he was registered, but getting him from school to our hometown polls was a problem. I am across the country and can't help. I suggested he get a parking place on campus for the week, I suggested his father drive him. No traction. I gave up.

I talked to him Monday night.

My first vote, he said. How are you going to get there, I asked, worrying that he had mistakenly though he could vote in his college town.

But no, he had arranged for a friend to drive three hours to get him from school to the polls and back And so he voted a straight blue ticket and texted me a picture.

That's my boy. To the party who wants to gut help for people who need it, who write off the unlucky as undeserving:  My son, despite his disability and thanks to our state's generous help, pays taxes and votes for your opponent.