After weeks of preparation and revision, Dylan’s schedule was finally done. He’d registered for classes; he’d gotten classes he needed and didn’t hate. He even got a schedule that allowed him to sleep in.
The day after registration, which was also the final day of registration for freshmen, Dylan got a note.
Dear Student,
You are currently signed up for CEI 1220 with Mark Volman, but due to your major and the content covered in the course, you need to take a session with a different professor. Please sign up for another section instead.
Dylan texted me a screenshot of that email, with these words:
i want to die
Not only would Dylan be losing the professor who founded the Turtles, but he would also be losing his finished schedule.
At the very least, Dylan had to give up Sociology in order to take the new section of the class for his major. He was also justifiably angry that there was no mention of this requirement in the course catalog.
And now, everything was full. Every section of Sociology was full. Every backup class from his list was full. There were no available math or science classes, except one section of Computer Science.
what about computer science? you’re going to need it anyway
i mean yeah i guess if thats all i can do
He plunked in the registration number for Computer Science. An error message popped up: You are prohibited from taking this class due to requisite or testing requirements.
From all the studying I’d done, I remembered that Dylan’s SAT math score was too high to allow him to take Computer Science. But I didn’t go into that with him right then, because he still had to do something about his schedule.
He searched. I searched. We scoured the web for a class he might need that was not only at 8 a.m. But all the classes were full.
Or so it seemed.
I tried a different tack: I looked at the options for fine arts classes that were not related to music. Since Dylan so prefers music classes, he had not even considered any other fine arts options.
One of the classes was called, The Theatre Experience. It wasn’t a history class, and instead explored the creation of a show from start to finish. Since Dylan had done theater productions for six years in a row, I’d been afraid he might be bored with it – and hadn’t even mentioned it to him.
Before I said anything, I checked: there were spaces available! Best of all, it was at the exact same time as his prior class had been, so he wouldn’t have to switch anything else around.
omg do you want to take theatre?
maybe – what is it – is it like history of theatre or
fine arts requirement: ‘Designed to provide students with a basic understanding of the process of theatrical production from conception to execution to evaluation.’
okay yeah that sounds good
Dylan registered for The Theatre Experience.
So once again, he had a schedule.
Dylan was still angry, as was I, about losing Mark Volman. But what he really wanted, he said, was Introduction to Sociology. He said he was looking forward to that class. And he wasn’t keen on public relations, although it would have fulfilled the same requirement for him.
Astoundingly, when writing this blog post, I stumbled upon an opening in the Sociology class he wanted – one available slot – that fit in place of his public relations class.
So now, Dylan is taking his long-lost Sociology class, too.
Sigh.
Over Thanksgiving break, Dylan and I were ordering his new text books for the spring semester, when he started to complain.
“I don’t even know why we’re doing this,” he said. “I don’t think I need to buy all these books. Sometimes I don’t even have to open them.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have to open them? How do you read them?”
“Well for some of my classes, I don’t have to read them.”
“Of course you have to read them,” I said. “Why would you have a book for a class if you didn’t have to read it?”
“Well most of my professors told us not to even carry the book to class! I just left them in my room for the whole semester.”
“Yeah, but you have to read for homework, right?”
“Not really,” Dylan said. “Sometimes they’ll tell us to read a few pages but most of the time, it’s just assignments and stuff.”
“What are you talking about, Dylan? You have to read your text books. Wait – can we find your syllabus online?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, and showed me how to find his syllabus for Introduction to the Bible.
“Here,” I said, pointing. “According to this, you were supposed to read the first 82 pages by the end of September. What do you think these numbers are? All these … look. ‘Pages 1 to 82, pages 251 to 302…’ Why do you think there are page numbers on your syllabus? By Thanksgiving, you were supposed to be done reading through page 359! Have you read through page 359?”
“Well he didn’t say any of that to the class,” Dylan said.
“Dylan, it’s college! He didn’t say it because he wrote it out for you, very clearly, on this syllabus that he gave you at the beginning of the class! Every assignment you had is on this syllabus! How many other books did you not read?”
“I read what my professors told me to read,” he said.
From what I can gather, Dylan didn’t even open at least two of his five text books.
His grades, however, don’t show it. He’s getting A’s and B’s, and he didn’t even know he had to read his text books.
This, I believe, is where being intellectually gifted has saved him – again.
But I sure hope he doesn’t depend on that giftedness next semester. I think, instead, he should read his text books.
We went ahead and bought them, just in case.
Since Dylan has been at college, Shane and I have a routine – that we actually follow. It works like clockwork.
Shane does his thing; I do mine. We meet downstairs for breakfast, which I serve to him (because I am happy to put that cereal in a bowl and put a piece of fruit next to it). While he eats, I make his lunch (because I am happy to throw crackers into his lunchbox). And then we leave, on or near 7:07 a.m., which gets us to school just in front of the school traffic back-up.
Shane is often the first or second person in class, which is how he likes it. And I get home before 8:00, which means I can get ready for work, or walk the dog, or whatever – all before 9 a.m.
But today, that didn’t happen.
Today, I did my thing – but Shane’s door was closed tight, and no lights were on. Since he wakes himself – and should, at the ripe old age of nearly 16 – I went downstairs. I made his breakfast, which sat on the table. I made his lunch, which sat on the counter. I took care of the dog, and I waited.
I debated waking up Shane, since I had done it for Dylan on many occasions. But I had woken up Shane before – just once, maybe a year ago – and I’d told him that I wasn’t going to do it again.
Shane is responsible for getting himself out the door on time.
So at 7:07, I crawled back into bed.
Two minutes later, there were thumping sounds. The dog was with me; Bill was at work. Obviously, Shane had slept through his alarm – and was now up.
A minute later, he appeared in my room, breathing fast: “I was supposed to be gone by now!”
“Slow down your breathing,” I said. “And go get ready. You may have to skip your shower.”
So he did his thing; I put his a portable breakfast into the car, and waited. He came downstairs with his homework, grabbed his lunchbox, and threw his backpack, shoes and socks into the car.
We left the house at 7:20. When Dylan was home, we often left even later than that – which no one enjoyed.
“Eat,” I said, in the car, after his shoes were on. And he ate. Silently.
Somehow, we slid in between waves of traffic. We drove quickly.
I spoke a bit about how sleeping in was fairly normal for teenagers – i.e., people who go to bed later than they should, and have to be up early for school. I didn’t yell. I tried not to lecture. I suggested a back-up alarm for the future.
But we didn’t have a lot of time to talk about it anyway. We ended up in a backup, but not a long one, and Shane got to school with five full minutes to spare.
I pulled away from the school as the first bell was ringing.
When I got home, I had a text from Shane: 2nd person in class
He sent a little thumbs-up emoticon with his text.
I thumbs-upped back.
Somehow, he slept in, woke himself, and still got to school on time.
I thanked God, and then took a little nap myself. Not lecturing, not yelling, and not being in complete control is absolutely exhausting.
Shane has been talking since he was very young about having a career in film. When he was a preschooler, he took videos non-stop with a Little Tikes camera. This lasted for years. He would point the camera at his toys, and then he would talk – barely loud enough for the microphone to pick up his voice, let alone his toddler-esque words.
So we got him a better camera. Inadvertently, I discovered that he also had a knack for taking still photos – I mean, he really has a knack for it. I wanted desperately to be a photographer when I was younger. I do not have a knack for it.
Years went by. Shane entered one photography competition – the county fair – and won THE Chairman’s Choice Award for his age group. He continued to make films for YouTube and Instagram. And he kept saying he was interested in a career in film.
So, at some point in October, Shane and I started planning a trip to see some colleges in California. Well, really, I started planning and Shane acted disinterested.
“You have to go to school in California if you really want to be in film,” I said – 6,000 times.
“Okay,” Shane would say. But he didn’t do any research on colleges. He stopped taking video classes in school (mostly thanks to the school) and he pretty much stopped making videos, too.
He started attending the local film club, Tryka, where high schoolers at all levels of filmmaking could talk about film. He seemed to like it, but he sure didn’t love it.
“Are you still interested in film?” I asked – many times.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t really want to be a director or anything, but film is better than any of the other choices of careers.”
“Son, do you have any real passion for working in film? I mean, is it something you really want to do with your life? California is a long way away, and that’s really where you have to be if you want a career in film.”
“I don’t have a passion for anything,” he said. “But I would rather work in film than anything else I can think of.”
Ah-ha! I thought. He just can’t think of anything else!
California is a long way away. We are still going to visit some colleges known for their film degrees, and I’m happy to see the Californian sights. But I’m not thrilled about sending my not-so-passionate baby 3,000 miles away so that he can study something he doesn’t even like.
“Would you like to read a cool book?” I asked him. “It really helped me when I couldn’t figure out what to do with my life, and they wrote one specifically for teenagers. It’s called, ‘What Color is Your Parachute?‘”
“No.”
Shane is not a fan of reading whole books, even though he used to love them. He is definitely from the 21st century, short-attention-span crowd.
So I made a booklet for him. I hopped online and researched occupations Shane might enjoy, and careers that he might find enticing. I found a website called Job Monkey that listed occupations he probably never knew existed – and then I plunked in information about the related majors and college programs for the various careers.
I printed it out for him.
And then it sat there, in a pile, for two weeks.
I’m beginning to think that the problem is not “passion for film” as much as just “finding a passion.”
Shane – always – prefers to just sit. He is a poster child for Newton’s first law.
Things That Never Occurred to Me About Dylan’s Homecoming:
- Dylan would continue to be independent, even though I still occasionally think he is seven.
- Shane would be left alone for hours at a time, because Dylan wanted to spend some of his “home” time out with friends.
- Even on Thanksgiving, when I thought I would be spending the whole day with Dylan, he spent a lot of time socializing with other people at our Thanksgiving dinner.
- Three days goes by way, way, way too fast.
- Having him here made me miss him more.
The good news, of course, is that Dylan is going back to school, taking some exams, and coming home again. We’ll see him soon! But this holiday has been strange, fun, new, old and wonderful – and I’m so glad he’s here with us now.
Even if he does still sleep until noon.
I haven’t allowed myself to miss Dylan … too much. I’ve concentrated on his successes at college – and there have been a bunch of those! And I’ve concentrated on Shane, and his successes, too. It’s been a pretty productive few months!
But today, Dylan is coming home for the first time since he left for college. He hasn’t been here since mid-August and he’s only staying for Thanksgiving.
But I have been out of my mind with excitement.
I have checked and re-checked his room. Nothing has happened in there since we cleaned it and changed the sheets right after he left. I’ve put some mail on his bed. But for the most part, it looks exactly like it did when he left.
I’ve been looking at it anyway. Expectantly.
I am making sure the fridge and the freezer have all the appropriate items. Mostly, he likes ice cream. We have LOTS of ice cream! I’m sure he has access to plenty of ice cream at college. But I wouldn’t want him to do without!
We also have frozen pizzas – lots and lots of frozen pizzas. Did I mention that he’s coming for Thanksgiving, when we won’t even be home, and that he’s only staying for three days?
I think about how lame everything is going to look to him. He’s going to see the house in a way he’s never seen it before: from the outside. He’s going to realize that it’s dirty and that we never clean up certain piles that just live, in piles, under desks and on tables. He’s going to realize that the house has a smell – a home smell – and that his dorm room has a completely different smell – and he’ll probably think that smell is okay. And he’ll realize that he has to cook his own food here, or that someone will cook, and that his bed is giant and comfortable and he doesn’t have to climb up to get into it, like he does at college.
He’ll want to spend all of his time in his studio, making music, because he doesn’t have all that space at school. And I’ll want him to spend his time with me, so I can just sit and grin at him, soaking in his presence. Neither of us will get our way entirely.
Most of all, he’ll feel two things: stifled and relaxed. Simultaneously. He’ll remember how young he was, when he left, and he’ll want to get away from that immediately. And then he’ll remember how nice it is here, having people who love him doing the smothering.
And I will remember that I felt that way, too, and that it turned out okay – with my parents now being two of my favorite people in the whole wide world.
And I will remember that they let me have my space when I needed it. I will try to let Dylan have space. I already called him and asked if he would go with us to get a Christmas tree. This may have been too much to ask, but I couldn’t bear the thought of doing it without him.
And then, after we get the tree, he will go back to college. And I will miss him more than ever. But he’ll come home again in a few weeks, and I am already looking forward to that. Even though I know that our house will be lame. Our stuff will be lame. I will be the lamest of all.
And it will be okay. It will be okay. It will all be okay.
When Shane started therapy six months ago for his OCD, he was a basket case. I was a basket case. None of us knew what to do, or how to help him.
He couldn’t finish his homework because he couldn’t read a text book. He was obsessed with the idea that he was doing something wrong. He worried about hurting other people, making them sick, breaking the law, and not knowing what laws he was breaking.
We got him a therapist who took our insurance. This turned out to be helpful – but not as helpful as we hoped.
Two months later, Shane was in worse condition than ever. He couldn’t function at night without “confessing” things he thought he’d done wrong. He couldn’t enjoy his summer because he was constantly worried about breaking laws and doing things that might hurt people.
Worst of all, he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
We’d never heard of Responsibility OCD.
But when his therapist admitted that he was out of ideas, and suggested that Shane might need medication, we started looking for – almost accidentally – a new therapist.
We scoured the earth for someone who could listen to Shane, understand him, and prescribe medication. We ended up with a prescription that still sits on our shelf.
But by the beginning of September, we found someone who really understood Shane. And he understood OCD. He knew about Responsibility OCD – and he knew exactly how to treat it.
So he told Shane what to do to take care of himself – and Shane, being Shane, did what he needed to do.
After only two months with the new therapist, Shane “graduated.” The therapist said that Shane now knew how to tell the difference between his obsessions and his thoughts. And best of all, he was no longer stuck when he had an obsessive thought; he knew exactly what to do to move forward.
So Shane has been released from therapy and is moving forward, no longer stuck, and happy.
I am so proud of him, of his bravery, of his ability to tackle his issues head-on and succeed. And I feel so blessed to have found the right therapist for him so quickly.
But most of all, I am happy for Shane, because all I ever wanted is for him to be happy.
Dylan was awake and ready to register for classes a full hour before registration started. This, in itself, was impressive. He texted me while we both anxiously awaited the opening bell.
(There was no bell, really. That was just a figure of speech.)
Dylan’s schedule had been set, reset, revamped, and reset again, resulting in – we hoped – a handful of necessary credits that Dylan was hoping to actually enjoy. Best of all, he was prepping for a semester of sleeping right through any 8 a.m. classes that might be offered.
“While you’re waiting, you should look through the course catalog and just make sure there are no prerequisites for your classes,” I said.
“What’s a course catalog?” he said. (I had obviously done too much.)
A few minutes later he said, “I need the CRN numbers for these classes.”
“What’s a CRN?” I asked. (I had obviously not done enough.)
We got the CRN numbers; he listed them and got ready to hit “submit.”
But five minutes after registration began, Dylan texted me. “I got into all of my classes except Copyright Law,” he said. “That one was full. So I put in Intro to Music History and it gave me an error message. Now I don’t know what I’m going to take and all of the Copyright Law classes are full.”
Dylan and I worked together on this. It took about 20 minutes and a rehashing of the requirements for graduation, but when I realized that Public Relations was a Social Sciences course, I was elated.
“There’s one spot left in Public Relations!” I nearly squealed. “Get it! It’s the same time as Copyright Law and it will fit in perfectly!”
“What’s public relations?” Dylan asked.
“Just get it and I’ll tell you after!” I was panicked that he would be shut out of that one, too. It was like buying concert tickets for Mariah Carey or trying to win an auction on eBay for something utterly unique.
Two seconds went by.
“I’m in,” he said.
“Yay! That’s great!”
“Yeah, I have a schedule.”
“You have a schedule.” After only a month of playing around with the course catalog, and after accessing the wrong one and fixing the issue, and after Dylan’s hopping from one course to another as they filled up before his very eyes… Dylan finally had a schedule.
“So are you sure I need to take Public Relations?”
“I’m sure it’s one of the best options in the list of Social Sciences,” I said – having also convinced him along the way that Sociology was not a bad “-ology” to take.
“Okay,” he said. “So what is it?”
“It’s something everyone uses and it will be good to take no matter what career you have,” I started. And then, since my dad was a superstar in public relations for about 50 years, I explained to Dylan – to the best of my ability – the meaning of “public relations.”
And then I exhaled for the first time in three days.
On the day before Dylan registered for spring classes, my choices for courses had grown to a ten-page, color-coded document with a variety of back-up choices. Since he’s a freshman, Dylan registered near the end of the week-long registration – and many of his favorite classes were filling.
“You’re going to need four sciences,” I told him, “and two maths.”
“Why do I have to take so much science?” Dylan whined.
“Because you’re getting a Bachelor of Science degree, remember?”
“Oh, right. And why am I doing that?”
“Because you didn’t want to take any foreign language classes.”
Dylan sighed. Over the course of the week, we talked several times. Twelve hours before registration, we worked together to find a schedule that would not only help him graduate, but it would make him less anxious.
“I don’t want to take anything that starts before convo hour,” he said. (Convo hour is at 10 a.m.)
Finally, with my ten-page document scrawled and re-done several times, and a new document called “schedule choices” – and then a final document called “FINAL FINAL FINAL I HOPE GOODNIGHT” … I was ready to go to bed.
And Dylan was ready to go back and work on his paper, which he needed to complete by midnight.
It was after 10:00, but I thought, Gee, I should just make a quick list of all the classes he needs for the B.S. degree and all the classes he needs for his major, so he’ll have it for next fall’s registration.
So I hopped online and started downloading information, and highlighting which courses he’d already taken… when suddenly, with an unpleasant lurching of my stomach, I saw something I hadn’t seen before.
At the top of the course catalog, on the upper right-hand side, was a little box with a drop-down menu that said:
Undergraduate Catalog 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
I almost vomited.
Apparently I had – somehow – bookmarked the archived catalog from two years ago on my computer, and had been “helping” Dylan by determining his course requirements based on a catalog that was substantially different than the current catalog.
It was 11:00, my time, when I called Dylan who – at least – had another hour to start making changes to his course schedule. Meanwhile, it was way past my bedtime.
“You only need two sciences now,” I told him. “So that’s good. And to be honest, the classes you’re going to be taking now are way better!”
Then we spent another hour throwing together choices that, hopefully, would fix the problems I had created by reading the wrong catalog.
Eventually, Dylan had a schedule he liked – with all of his classes starting at 11:00 or later – and I could go to bed. Which I did.
I literally dreamed about course registration. People were in my way, when I was trying to register. Some woman kept blocking me from the table as I was trying to get to the computer. I woke up several times during the night, only to fall asleep and have another dream about being unable to register for classes.
I’m really not in college anymore, but that didn’t stop my anxiety.
I got almost no sleep, worrying about Dylan’s classes 700 miles away. And when I woke up, the real fun started.
While we were going through Dylan’s schedule to see what classes he might want to take, I did a little extra research.
I always like to do a little extra research.
His introductory class for his major was being taught by two different professors, and none of those classes seemed to be filling up. So I thought, I’ll just see what their bio’s look like. Maybe one will sound better than the other.
Poor Professor Schreiber never stood a chance.
The other professor’s name popped up all over the internet.
I clicked on a link that said, “Psychedelic pop singer Mark Volman …” and discovered that Mark Volman is one of the founding members of The Turtles. They sang his song, “Happy Together.” Coincidentally, Shane recently started singing this song on a regular basis.
But if that weren’t enough, Mark Volman also played in Frank Zappa’s band, Mothers of Invention, for ten years.
I started texting Dylan the way folks used to call people until the phone rang “off the hook.”
YOU CAN’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY! I scream-texted. YOU HAVE TO TAKE THIS CLASS WITH THIS GUY!!!!!
Eventually, Dylan – barely knowing the word “Zappa” but totally understanding the allure – signed up to take Mark Volman’s class.
After that, I read his entire bio on the Belmont website. He’s a Grammy-award-winning artist – but not for the Turtles or Zappa. He wrote children’s music! He sang with Linda Ronstadt and Bruce Springsteen! He is still touring, doing 50 shows a year! This man has done so much with his life, I wonder how he finds time to teach.
But he’s not just teaching; he’s the coordinator of the program in which Dylan is majoring.
Certainly, college is expensive. But gee whiz. There is nowhere else in the world where this guy could teach. He is music, and that’s what he’s going to teach to my music-loving son.
I love this college. I love this man. I love Dylan for landing in the right place. I love God for getting him there.
Amen.
