Move-In Day

In senior year of English class, Mr. Cavaluzzi had everyone write in a journal. For the first 5 minutes of every class, he had us write. If you didn’t want to write, you could doodle. At first I thought this was a stupid idea, but then again in high school I thought every idea was stupid. I actually enjoyed writing in the journal though, and it wasn’t long before I kept my own journal and wrote in it daily.

That assignment was the single best thing any teacher has ever asked me to do. There were no grades given, there were no rules to the assignment other than to write (or doodle) for 5 minutes. I kept up with my journal for years and years, and now I lament the years that I lapsed. My single biggest regret as a parent is that I didn’t consistently keep a ‘dad journal.’ I wish I could have 5 minutes back of each day since Sophia was born to write a few sentences, a short paragraph. “Today Sophia burped. She giggled. Then she spit up. Juli is a fantastic mom. We need a new washing machine.” It just takes a few words to bring me back to a moment, but without the words…. Like a helium-filled balloon without a string, it floats away and you can never see it again.

I graduated high school and was accepted to SUNY Oswego without having spent one second considering a major or generating any interest whatsoever in my future. My only goal in high school was to get out of my parents’ house.

My parents had other ideas. My mother has always had a good business sense. Her father owned a dairy distribution business in Brooklyn, and I guess things rubbed off. She enrolled me into Oswego as a Business major. It would be at least 10 years after I graduated Oswego that I would admit to my mother that I had made a mistake; I should never had discontinued with my Business major.

We drove up to Oswego for Move-In Day, and were staying at a motel nearby. The last thing I wanted to do was to have anything to do with business or making money. Money was the root of all evil, the song goes, and I was naive enough to believe it.

That night at the motel, waiting for Move-In Day, I holed up on the cement patio of our motel room, scratching out in my journal a 17 year olds’ anger at the world, counting down the seconds until I could get away from my parents.

Somehow my parents didn’t kill me that night. And somehow we made it to Move-in Day.

For my parents, Move-In Day meant unpacking all of my clothes, making my bed, and introducing themselves to all of my dorm mates, their parents, etc. I was mortified. To me it wasn’t Move-In Day. It was Move-Out Day. I was about to get out from under them.

For the record, my parents really weren’t overbearing or smothering at all. They actually left me alone more often than not. They asked a lot of questions (still do), but it wasn’t micro-inspection or nosy. They asked questions because they were genuinely curious what their mysterious, withdrawn, sullen son was up to. I had it pretty easy…. I made it as difficult as it could be.

I guess they did what they could to get through to me, but I would have shut anyone out. It wasn’t until many years later that I would finally admit I would have been far better off going to a psychiatrist and community college than to Oswego. But in 1984, the year I graduated high school and went off to Oswego, I would have laughed at you if you would have suggested I talk with someone professionally. “You’re the crazy one,” I would have insisted.

I would have revolted against any set of parents. Wally and Sheila didn’t stand a chance.

I am so happy to be able to say that I have a very good and loving relationship with my parents now, and have had for many years. As a physical therapist, I often interact with my patients and their adult children, so I know what a lot of adult children/80ish-parent relationships are like. It is with great joy that I can say that my parents drive me about as crazy as most 80-ish parents drive their 50-ish sons.

That day, somehow, finally I convinced them to leave my dorm room. My roommate Rob had brought a case a beer with him from Rochester. By the time my parents had driven off of campus, (not a big campus), I had probably drank three beers. The binge drinking had started, and it wouldn’t end for four plus years.