Vassar has less than a month at home now. Over the summer, Myesha and I have unexpectedly more time with him than we at the beginning of the school year expected. It makes me happy that we took advantage of his presence; we’ve gotten to know him even better, and more importantly, he knows us better, too.

I think all three of us have really focused on refining down the things we love in each other and staying attuned to the relationship, while still maintaining a reasonable amount of autonomy. That’s been a core of our marriage, so it isn’t a surprise that we three operate that way as a unit. There are sometimes struggles, but those aren’t deep — more like optimizations in identity and navigating how we think of ourselves inside of the relationship we all have to each other.

Isn’t that what we as humans are supposed to do? Whether or not it was intentional (for me it wasn’t), that’s been a core focus of how our relationship has evolved. And it seems very appropriate.

When he leaves in August, he will definitely take a part of us with him. But we spend adequate time developing and exploring ourselves so that the detachment isn’t devastating. I think we’ll all adapt well. He definitely will. And we two remaining at home have personal interests — both internal and external — to keep us focused on how we want to continue growing. Taking his absence into account within that environment will simply be a new part of the equation.