Sam came down to North Carolina to greet me as I came home and to spend some time connecting with the family and parts of her past. It was a wonderful visit.
Sam has dialed back the drama in her life that swirled around people and issues beyond her control and has taken on new stressors like college, work, and the life skills required to be 20 years old. Not that any of it is easy in the year 2017. She finished her first year in college with a 4.0 and many recommendations for jobs and transfers from a college to a university. She works for the school as an ambassador, her mother's store, and has started a social media campaign for local chef. Yes, no doubt she is stressed but she is not being debilitated by it. She is harnessing the stress to drive her forward. She told me over dinner that she was afraid of going back to the way things used to be for her and I told her I just didn't see how that was possible. 
Sam is less and less at war with everything/everyone around her - especially herself. While there are always, always set backs in life - Sam's trajectory has left that adolescent person far behind her. 
That is probably because Sam is no longer a teenager! She turned 20 years old while she was here and celebrated with her family at Macaroni Grill. (Hard to believe she will be 21 next year). We got her a cool double hammock that she now tots around with her where ever she goes.
We did some cool things like go to Raven Rock State Park and the USS North Carolina, and Sam spent time with her friends in the area by going to - of all things - a concert with Foreigner, Cheap Trick, and Jason Bonham's Led Zepplin Experience. 
Sam went to Family Camp with us to Camp Seafarer. A place that she spent nine summers as a camper and counselor but didn't leave on the absolute best of terms with. Going back to places like that can be challenging. Sam loved Camp as a camper and I think it was one of most important parts of her young life. She learned to sail and a love for the water that has stayed with her all these years later. After several years away - and a lot of changes in both Sam and Camp - the reunion could have been challenging. 
Yet Sam embraced it completely, and if there were moments of regret or melancholy, we never saw them. Sam threw herself into the "family" in Family Camp by blobbing, tubing, zip lining, running, playing and cheering! Sam (and the rest of us) left it all on the table.
Camp will always be in her, even when she isn't in Camp.
Having Sam in the house is still a challenge for me. She is 20 and does not live here, yet I still have an overwhelming need to do that parenting thing; where are you going, with who, when will you be back...it is aggravating for both of us but a responsibility we both have to abide by when she is with this family. I consider it practice for the boys.
And just like that she is back in New York. Her trip back to New York was a mild disaster because her flight through to Syracuse from Philadelphia was cancelled and rather than spending the night in a hotel or the USO, Sam - ever the resourceful person she is - found four other people heading to Central NY and took an UBER with them.
That's all for now but on an interesting side note, TJ just discovered that we "blog" and that a lot of the stories are about him; at least the ones from 2007 to 2010. I hope it has started his appreciation for reading.
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