College continues.

Vince and I are sloooowwwwly stepping through all the college applications. It is tedious and repetitive. On Sunday, we walked/talked through all the activities section for the common app. This took approximately three hours. This has to be repeated for 5 other websites, hopefully taking less than three hours. I tried to coax him to write one of the many essays he has to write. Topics including: a story about intellectual curiosity, or describing service to others, or how one is going to add diversity to the campus, or how his character was shaped by having a long-term belief challenged, or describe an experience regarding discrimination or what book/movie/music have you recently enjoyed and how did it move you. But he looked at me and said, not today, I don’t like talking/writing/thinking about myself or whatever accomplishments I’m suppose to have done. I can only do it for so long and I’ve done enough for today.

As we move through this season, I’m regressing to an earlier form of motherhood. I don’t want to spend my time with Vince going through college applications. I just want to spend my time sitting next to him watching youtube videos and combing his hair and talking about absolutely nothing and laughing and sharing Doritos and spending the whole afternoon that way. I want him to let me rest my head against his shoulder while I’m reading a book while he is texting his friends and laughing and intermittently showing me funny memes they send each other.

On Saturday Vince woke up a bit on the earlier side and said – hey mom, I’m going to the zoo with a bunch of friends for a bio project and then I’m going to the U of Oregon reception downtown. I’ll be home in the late afternoon. I can bike to the metro, but it’d be nice to take the car. I said – check with your dad if he needs the car and then he was off. On his own with his own Saturday plans.

A postcard to the U of Oregon reception had been sent in the mail and it was to be held at a fancy Italian place downtown (fancier and more meat-based than I thought U of Oregon would have liked it to be, but what do I know?). I told him there was going to be free food. He was interested and he went on his own. He was OK with the school, the people seemed nice enough, he said the food was good. I said if he went there, it would be about being outside on the weekends and exploring the northwest and that he’d need a car. And then he thought, I could drive across the country. We have our priorities set for college. He’d do chemistry there with a minor in food science.

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