Will has lived in his own place on his own for the first time in his life for five days.

He has done laundry, rudimentary cooking, and navigated his way around town (our town). But now he is doing all these things, making all these choices without (much) input from us. And he is lonely. Our family is very tight knit and we talk all the time. He said the hardest times are when he sits down to eat. By himself.

He is looking for events and/or group meetings to attend. He wants to meet people. And I wonder how he will do. We have encouraged him to find a church where he can meet people. And to find some volunteer activities that he can do after work or on Saturdays. But he is still living alone. That is a very different experience for him.

I don’t have much experience with living alone. The few short periods that I lived alone without knowing anyone were unpleasant to me. I lived with my family, and then a variety of roommates, and then married. My husband has a lot more experience in living alone. He can talk to Will about living alone far more experientially.

I am going to visit Will this weekend with my oldest daughter and bring him some more stuff from our house. And donuts from Marge’s Donut Den. We are going thrift shopping again, for decorations and furniture. And we are planning to play some games.

I tell him that when I was his age (1984), it costs 20 cents a minute to call long-distance. I could only call my parents once a week, for a very short time. I had to share a phone with my roommates. My husband didn’t have a phone; he had to use a pay phone to call his mother. Now, although we pay a lot for our phones each month, it doesn’t cost anything extra beyond the initial bill for each phone call we make.  So we watched American Idol last night “together.”