Something that I have only just recently realized about myself is that my imaginings of my son as an adult have a huge hole in them. When he was small, I had imagined his life until he went to college and then fast forwarded until I was a grandmother. I hadn’t imagined his college years, life right after college, or what it would be like when he started dating. Having him graduate high school at 12 and college at 16 with his bachelor’s in economics means that his dating life has been rather up close and personal, which is the exact opposite of my non-imaginings. I had always though that his dating life would be a non-event in my life. I think the reason that it looms so large is that we work together and live 10 minutes away from each other, which means we talk every day and see each other five times a week. Sometimes we see each other every day. I enjoy the closeness and how frequently we talk and see each other. We are much closer than I imagined we would be. In the US, I had always assumed he would have to move away for school or work and, happily, that has not been the case in Japan.
With our closeness comes an awareness of his activities and the people he does them with. Which means that we know when he is dating and when he is not. I do my best to not impact his dating life, but sometimes our worlds collide due to work emergencies. I never interact with the women he dates but I do on occasion interact with him when he is with them. That is, up until recently. His current girlfriend makes him so happy and inspires him to be a better man. This endears me to her, so I often give her little gifts or send her nice messages through him. On occasion, Chad and I will buy them lunch or treat them to a day out on us. She is always lovely and thanks us and gives me nice little gifts and sends nice message to me and Chad. I really like who I think she is, but I don’t really know her as we have never met. I have developed this belief that I should not meet anyone he dates until after her proposes to them because I feel that meeting his parents should be something special that his wife has. I think of it as a singular gift. I think I am going to hold my ground on this. He wants to be married, and I want his wife to feel as special as possible.