First steps

My friend Ian has told me for years to write my life story.  It has always seemed so daunting a task that I couldn't embrace it.  Then it occurred to me that I could do it this way - rambling a bit about past, future and present in a blog.  So we'll see what happens with this first step.  A first step that begins with my middle child instead of me...

Future
Spencer will be married soon.  My pug-nosed, freckled 'Dennis the Menace' look-alike son has grown into an interesting man with a style and flare of his own.  He looks like his father, but his heart and soul are more like mine.  I pity him his weaknesses, and apologize abjectly for them as they are mostly mine.  His strengths are his very own. 

Laurie, the woman he's chosen to marry, is intelligent, beautiful and a wee bit wild.  They seem to get on well together and I think this will work for them.  I hope so.  I want this huge adventure to go well. 

Past
When he was two he would plead with me to buy vegetables in the grocery, asking for the 'shrumprooms' and broccoli.  So different than his sister and brother who would seldom allow me to sneak a veg into them. 
When he was six and his father and I had separated he wanted me to bundle him up in a blanket. He'd feel secure, wrapped snug like a baby, when I'd run downstairs to the laundry room for a minute leaving him in the apartment with Rayne. 

When he was twelve he ran wild in Virginia.  No fear. None at all.  Ventures into sewers, up trees, onto rooftops.  I'm glad I only knew a quarter of what he did.
When he was sixteen I worried he'd not make it past the punk culture he had embraced and move into adulthood.

Present
He survived.  And he's smart, and he's interesting, and he's got a good heart.  His artistic bent and inate charm help him make a decent living selling clothes to men with way too much money.

He lives so far away. But recently he remarked that he misses his friends, misses the seasons, misses his family.  As Laurie is a NOVA miss too, they may move home someday.  I hope so.  I miss my baby.