College Break

My oldest son, who will be 18 in a couple of weeks, is home from college for spring break. When he is home, that means his two best friends, who are 20 and 17, are here pretty much all the time. I'm actually not exaggerating. They both go home every couple of nights, but rarely for more than 24 hours. One goes home more frequently than the other, because he is still in high school and his mom actually makes him do school.

His friends are very, very loud and talk all the time. I am sitting in the kitchen while supper cooks and listening to them in the living room. I don't think his one friend has stopped talking for more than 30 seconds at a time. It's kind of a funny thing because, like us, our son is an introvert. He must crave moments of quiet, and yet he loves having them here, filling up his break. The truth is, they are part of our family.

I'm glad they feel welcome here. Sometimes I want them all to leave. I'm not such a laid-back person that I enjoy having loud, talking people glued to my living room furniture 24 hours/day. But they are part of my son, and so they are part of me.

And they earnestly say things like this to me, after I suggested to one of his friends, who is obsessed with Twitter, that he might want to consider finding real-life friends: "But why? I have Jesse, and he is everything anyone could want in a friend."

That actually got me a little teary eyed, to think that my son is such a good friend.

This, however, had me a little worried:
"You know, I can totally see us sitting in one of our living rooms when we're like 35, and we'll just still be sitting around all day, playing video games, sharing music and stuff."

No. No. No. Please?