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There’s a wobble in his voice, “I don’t know, I just wanted to do more stuff.”
My son and daughter are currently camping in California with my in laws. This has been an annual tradition for the last four years. This is the first year I’ve heard the wobble from my son.
I’ve heard it from my daughter, she’s an emotional little soul and she gets homesick regularly but gets over it quickly.
My son is easily distracted and can read a book, wander, play a board game, he’s usually fine.
I think there are a combination of factors at work. One, he’s twelve, almost thirteen. That’s a tough year. Two, all the other kids camping are right around that age, too. So, they are all acting weird and don’t know why.
Three, and most importantly, there’s nothing to distract him this year.
Last summer, the best summer ever, if he’s to be believed, his friends and he were 10 and 11. That’s the perfect age for running through the woods, climbing trees, jumping carefree over logs, and throwing rocks that hit you on the forehead and leave cool scars that you still talk about today.
Yeah, 12 and 13 is kind of lame. You forget how much fun it is to run wild and to not care about your hair and you certainly didn’t think about if you were cool or not (you were the coolest).
My darling boy is homesick because puberty takes away the confidence to throw on tennis shoes and a tee shirt and ask your friends to ride bikes to get ice cream.
I love every change that my kids go through but I hate knowing how hard each one will be.
So, sweet boy, keep running with abandon as long as you want, because they’re the ones missing out.