So here we are for the umpteenth time (I’ve lost count), saying adios, hasta la vista baby, to Manchild #2.
The first few times, he was simply leaving our house, heading out on his own to live within a 25-mile radius of where he started.
That was fine. The first time he was gone exactly 30 days before boomeranging back to join our rather boring lives. There were a couple more living experiments before the last leave-taking a year ago when he got his own apartment. He has happily cared for himself ever since. For the most part.
So when the Hubster took a call from him two weeks ago and I could hear only my beloved’s side of the conversation, I figured out pretty fast that our youngest offspring was on the move once again.
“So when are you leaving?” the father of our brood asked. I waited to hear what would he’d say next, trying to imagine what the other end of the conversation was like.
“How’re you going to get your stuff there?”
(Our baby was definitely going someplace. A new apartment maybe?)
“How long a drive is it?”
(Not a destination close to home then. Ouch.)
“Where are you going to live? Do you have a job?
I could tell by the expression on the Hubster’s face that he wasn’t thrilled with the answers he was getting as he fired off one question after another.
Eventually he hung up and I started the grilling.
“Where’s he going?”
“Houston.”
“Texas?!” I asked. “Texas?” I asked again. “Are you sure?” I continued trying to wrap my mind around why anyone would move to Houston. It must be another Houston somewhere in South Carolina. Maybe over near Bennettsville. There’re all kinds of things over in that part of the state I don’t know about.
“Yes. Houston, Texas.”
Okay then. So our baby is moving to Texas. But he’s not a baby anymore. He’s 25 years old today.
When I finally talked to our grown up guy-child about the great adventure in moving on which he was about to embark, he looked me in the eye and said, “I’ve never been west of the Mississippi.”
“You went to London a couple of years ago.” I said in protest.
“That’s not west, Mom.”
He had a point there.
We have since spent a lovely evening helping him clean his apartment, agonized as he tried to figure out how to move his things to the far-off land of Houston and lost sleep over the quick decision to up and follow his heart.
Tomorrow, on the first day of his 25th year, he will pull away with a truckload of his stuff, and we will wave goodbye – again.
And then we will go home and continue redecorating his room.

Reach Judy Watts at 873-9424 or jwatts@journalscene.com