David, Evan and Andrew all growing up

David's roommate's parents live in Our Small Town and yesterday she came to visit them and dropped David off with us.


He and I played about cards for a couple of hours. He is the only person in the world who will play cards with me. It probably has something to do with him being the only person in my world who can beat me half (or even more than half) of the time.


Like always I want to invite him to come home. He has been struggling for two years now, and doing fairly well. He is slowly recognizing how little he can do without even a high school diploma. I want to bring him home and let him finish, and yet I am convinced that it will not work unless it is what he wants. I think he is getting closer. He spoke last night of his efforts to stay healthy. He seems to understand how precarious his life is. One illness and he cannot pay his bills. He will be 21 this fall. Someday this life may get old.


Do you get tired of reading that after every visit I have with him? I hope not, because the desire to "rescue" him and the effort it takes to remember that rescuing him when he does not (yet?) desire to be rescued are quite strong. I need to vent it all somewhere.

But putting that aside, it was a wonderful visit. It is perhaps because our visits are wonderful that I so strongly feel the need to take him in.

Evan on the other hand had dinner with the other kids in the education/job training program with the agency. The kids got their vouchers to buy whatever it was in their plan to buy (Evan got a lap top, we're talking generous vouchers here). They were also told that they each had a budget of $500 to buy things for their dorm rooms. So I think Evan will be fairly well-stocked with linens and trash cans.

Andrew is very excited about Evan's new lap top. Andrew is getting the old one. It is on "indefinite loan." Evan considered selling it to Andrew but then decided that he wanted to be able to recall it if anything happened to the new one. Andrew of course agreed.

Evan won't give it to him until he transfers all his stuff over -- all of it. He was quite insistent. I think Andrew started to say that he could be trusted not to snoop or mess things up, and then I think he realized just what sort of things Evan might have downloaded that he would want to remove and agreed.

I offered the use of my external hard drive if it would help with the transfer process. As long, of course, as everything was deleted off the hard drive.

And we talked about Andrew's college plans. He too will be leaving in a year.

I love that they are turning into responsible adults. I really do. I am proud and excited.

And a little sad.