What - Me, Jealous?

London, which I am totally not jealous about not getting to visit.

*A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity. -Robert A. Heinlein

Great excitement is brewing in the Asia Vu household as the final preparations are being made for Son#2's departure for London with his school group.  Suitcases have been pulled out of the closets, lists consulted, piles of clothes excavated from under furniture made ready for packing, Won exchanged for Pounds, camera batteries charged - you know the drill.

This is the first time (except for Summer Camp) that Son#2 will have been away from home so long, and his first trip to another country without his family, which used to be the sort of thing children did in their Junior Year Abroad, when they were about 21 and significantly closer to adulthood.  Of course, as with everything in the Modern Era, things are happening at an earlier and earlier age, which means that Son#2 is off on his first solo international jaunt at the tender age of 15 which, now that MsCaroline thinks of it, is really entirely too young.

MrLogical is taking the upcoming separation calmly in stride as is the way of fathers (do we really have to take him all the way to the airport? Can't we just put him on a bus?) while MsCaroline is slightly more apprehensive (at least one email or text every single day, understood? And stay with the group! Keep your wallet in your front pocket, and don't carry all your cash in it!) Apprehension notwithstanding, MsCaroline has been through this before with Son#1 and therefore in theory is handling the whole thing with complete relative sangfroid.

As his mother, MsCaroline is delighted and absolutely not jealous that Son#2 is able to have this tremendous opportunity to visit another country and experience some of the world's most famous sights that he didn't even know existed until she explained what they were.  He'll be attending a number of shows while he's there, including The Lion King, Babel, and Wicked and hopefully not wearing a t-shirt and torn jeans to any of them.  He'll tour Westminster Abby (It's a very big church, dear.  A lot of famous people are buried there) picnic along the Thames (Rhymes with 'hems' darling;  and the 'th' is pronounced as a 't',) go to Madame Tussaud's (Well, it's sort of like the original Ripley's Believe it or Not, but much older) and visit Abbey Road (You've heard of the Beatles, right? Well, they had this album, and...oh, never mind.)  


At the end of the day, of course, MsCaroline realizes she is fooling no one.  She is wildly, crazily, impossibly jealous of Son#2 and his incredible good fortune;  she would love to just take a week off work and go to London; she would love to see some beautiful buildings and historical sights; she would like to watch some outstanding shows, and find her favorite bloggers who live in the UK and stalk them meet them in person.

She would not even whine about the rain or the cold weather.  Not even once.

Of course, if Mr. Heinlein's quote* is to be believed, she  is also an insecure neurotic, but that really has no bearing on this discussion and - besides that - it is only Mr. Heinlein's opinion anyway.

Yes, if the truth must be told, MsCaroline is jealous.  But, in the inexplicable manner that mothers have, she is also delighted and happy for Son#2 in a way that makes any jealousy quite insignificant.  She can't wait for his horizons to be expanded, his understanding of history enhanced, and for his developing world view to be changed in a way that can only come from traveling to another country. (If MsCaroline were not so high-minded, she would also point out that she is very happy that this tour is a lot cheaper flying from Seoul than it would have been flying from the US, but let us not lower our level of discourse.)

Besides...she's already started planning her own trip.


Bon Voyage, Son#2.