Our "new" Camaro had the drab, gray base interior which wasn't nearly as nice as the bright and cheery interior of our old Camaro. I told my older son that I was thinking of swapping the interiors of the two cars and he told me he'd like me to do so but only he said, he being the gentleman that he is, "if it wasn't too much work". Half lying I told him that it wasn't and I quickly got at it. Our younger son, bless his heart, is much less the car person his brother is and could care less about such things.
Swapping the interiors required my dismantling of the interiors of both cars. While not a difficult process, well, getting the seat belts and dash board out was quite challenging, it was labor intensive and time consuming but I knew it would be worth it in the end; the color contrasts between the gray of the new Camaro and the red and black of the old, while not being stock and certainly not available from the factory, would be quite handsome. Also, many parts of the old into the new would make this transition that much easier for me as well. The most stressful thing about dismantling the interior of our old Camaro was fearing that I'd find some evidence of the boys behavior that their mother and I would be upset with.
Thank goodness I didn't find anything save for this pearl earring. I texted our older son this picture of it and he texted me back immediately an "LOL" and said he knew who it belonged to. So did I, that's why I texted it to him. It was his first girlfriend's and he remembered the night that she "dropped it" in the car and their frantic, fruitless search for it. We texted back and forth briefly reminiscing about her and his breaking up with her more than two years ago right after Thanksgiving. That was a tough thing for him to do but he needed to make a break from her. Little did he know at the time that while breaking up a relationship can be hard on the person calling the shots, it can be even tougher on the person getting broken up with. I've always shuddered at the thought of someone ditching either of our boys and the emotional carnage that could ensue.
Our boys call us so infrequently that any time that they do, regardless of the time of day, I fear the worst. In fact, our older son has yet to call me from college when something isn't wrong. Our younger son does call us occasionally with good news. The older one? Never. So you can understand my controlled hysteria when our older son called my cell phone just after 11 pm this past Saturday night. Had he been in an accident? Was he in jail? A million thoughts rocket through your mind in the fleeting seconds before you can hit "answer" on a cell phone. What was it? He was sobbing on the phone when I answered it and my heart sank and stomach flipped over. I breathed a slight sigh of relief when he told that his girlfriend had just broken up with him.
I never met this girl. His mother had and loved her, but I was surprised to hear that they were as serious as they were. Or as serious as he thought they were. I was under the belief that they were just good friends but apparently the poor kid had fallen in love with her and wanted to take their relationship to the next level. She had just left his apartment after breaking up with him and he called me needing to talk to someone. He was a sobbing, emotional wreck just like the time he broke up with his first girl friend but only worse. He sounded wounded. Hearing or seeing our boys so upset is quite possibly the hardest thing I have to endure as a parent and as the boys have gotten older, the anxiety in anticipation of them being upset only gets worse. Doing parenting right is not for the faint of heart.
What do you say to anyone let alone your child when they're that upset? Frankly, there is nothing you can say when emotions are so fresh and raw. He's four hours away and I did my best to give him as a big a long distance hug as I could muster through the phone. I did so by doing what I always do when someone I love is upset. I let him vent.
This is new turf for him. Strapping, confident young men like our son aren't supposed to ever lose at anything let alone at love. But it happens. And when it does it gets ugly. I don't believe that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger but I will say that it can make us cynical and less trusting if not closed off. Remarkably, though, at the end of our twenty minute call he sounded better and thanked me for picking up the phone. He was even laughing about the antics he and his friends were up to the night before. "Dad, I did a keg stand!" Amazing that he went from blubbering mess back to his fun loving self in such a short period of time. I hung up with him and looped in his mother about what was going on. I told him I'd call him the next day just to see how he was doing.
I called him the next day and he sounded almost completely fine and was all but joking about what had happened. Almost. I could tell that he was still smarting but he was in a much better place than when he first called me the night before. He's home in a week for spring break and it will be nice to see him. The Camaro will be finished and I can't wait for him to drive it. He'll have a lot on his mind and for certain that girl will dominate conversation while he's here. The only advice I can give him is to keep his chin up and focus on his studies. And continue to let him vent.
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