Weeks drift by, the screen remains blank.  Where are the words?  What do you want to articulate?  What does it have to do with cueing?

Should I talk of modeling romantic love as a single parent to my teenage youth, about to become ensnared in love’s confusions and passions?  Of Cafe Lady, a woman I have known for years, but only dated a brief period, ending with an odd abruptness?  Of the pain from the ending, the reemergence in my consciousness of absence, how I rue that I  have no one to share my life with?

Ben and Maddie have also known Cafe Lady for years, and we three enjoyed time spent with her while we were dating. They accept the end of the relationship, knowing that’s how things go, understanding that its ending is no reflection on them, knowing that among Cafe Lady’s many charms is a quality of warmth that maintains affection for them, only now from afar.  I do my best to be transparent with them, admitting to missing Cafe Lady and speaking of adventures we shared.  But I am very aware that it is not fair to burden them with all my emotional reactions to its ending, of the possibility that love had come to me?  And that love has eluded me?

So Cafe Lady has come and gone, and we three continue together.  Is there a lesson?  Or merely an experience?  One day we will have to fold new people into our lives, and my time with Cafe Lady (and her family) was perhaps a rehearsal for a show that one day I hope we can produce, each with another, and the others with us, in starring roles and supporting roles.

Should I write of future adventures, the trip Ben and I are soon taking to Rome?  Ben, my Latin scholar, the guy who knows all the Roman (and Greek) gods of mythology, jawing at me about the Republic and the Empire, heading together to the vibrant city on the Tiber.  A graduation present from me, a week in Rome, based in Trastevere.  Or should I mention my irritation that Ben has done no preparation for the visit, has not looked at a guide, has not suggested itineraries, not outlined possible adventures for the time in Rome, has not inquired into hours of museums and costs and days when closed, has not learned a single phrase in Italian?  Or how this specific lack of effort, or lack of imagination, or lack of curiosity about Rome seems to be too much a part of his general approach to the world?  And how that frustrates and worries me?

Should I acknowledge my concerns about a young man who seemingly never envisions his own future?  Is it a dearth of imagination on Ben’s part, an inability to articulate a way forward, or a complete denial of reality?  Is my role to push, pull, rant, encourage, hold the course?  Is this a parenting failure, or is Ben merely a late bloomer finding his way, with patience the best approach?  Should I indicate how fundamentally confident I am in my overall approach with Ben, but doubt keeps buffeting me as his maturation progress seems so minimal?

Here are random questions, from a man parenting a deaf son.  Will there ever be answers?  And, if so, will the answers generate more questions?

(PS  Many thanks for past comments!  Thanks for reading!)