IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL TIME!

This year's "Back to School" season is filled with mixed emotions for me.  My eighteen year old nephew is off to college.  He's the only child of his generation in our branch of the family, so we are all feeling this moment of transition keenly.

Also, in the last year I have returned to the neighborhood of my childhood, and experienced freshly life in a community infused with college students.  So today I include reflections from both.

A Drabble (100 Word Story) - Written for Laurence Simon's Weekly Challenge to the prompt "Load"

Load

By Judith Cullen

(c) 2014

Tomorrow he starts college.  No more using all his Mom’s blankets, cushions and chairs to build forts.  No more “Mr Baloony” stories, with three prompts from the young master himself. 

He bequeathed me his Disneyland Play Set – figures, slides, trains, things that spin.  A tiny drawer contains the surviving figures.  Not all of them made it through the many years of joy. Princesses lost their heads, as they often do.  The flying elephant ride is missing one car. As my wee boy departs for halls of higher learning I am emotionally and functionally one Dumbo shy of a full load.

An Essay

LIFE 101 – Living Off Campus

By Judith Cullen

(c) 2014

I wasn’t always this age.  I was young once. I even used to be a college student.  I remember the first home I had that was not under my parent’s, or anyone else’s, supervision.  I have fond recollections of mismatched glassware, decorating with batik cotton and Christmas tree lights.  I remember the freedom of playing whatever music I wanted, eating exotic meals of my own creation, and having friends over at all hours.  Up until recently I still enjoyed the delights of 2 am bubble baths and watching movies when I couldn’t sleep. I still have a cut glass jelly jar that is my guilty pleasures wine glass, which I have had for years. So I understand the heady independence of being out on your own for the first time and crafting your very own first nest.  It is TOTALLY great!