Letting go

A friend emailed, asking me for my post about life skills for heading off to college. Hard to believe, but next week I pick up Eldest at the close of her freshman year. 

A lot of people asked me this year what it’s like to send a 16-year old off to college. Generally what they meant was, Aren’t you scared? 

No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t worried Eldest would suddenly morph into a wild party girl. I was reasonably certain that her faith was important enough to her that she’d turn to it for grounding. And academics? – pshaw! That’s why she wanted to go. College was her desire, not mine.

So what was on my worry list? Things like how she’d handle the stress of her (very) high-pressure university, and whether or not she would get help if she needed it. How she'd react when she did poorly on a test. Whether she'd become an isolated grunt, or decide to have a life. If she'd find friends with whom to laugh.

Here's the update: There was a grand total of three times that Eldest called home because she was upset this year. That is an awesome number for any 16-year old. Utterly awesome. She had a few glitches (some of which felt major to her, but none of which were life-damaging) from which she recovered quickly. She was extremely wise about selecting extracurricular activities and balancing them with academics. She joined a Bible study group. She made friends with some very witty and fun people. She survived.

And how did we do at home? The first six weeks sans Eldest were rocky; after years spent cultivating sibling relationships, I learned (via the kids' grief at losing their sister) that I'd been successful. But eventually we got used to the new family configuration.

Or so I thought. About a month ago I was surprised to be hit by my own wave of grief. I'd mentally kept loose track of how often Eldest called home as an indicator of how well she was adapting, and one day realized that fewer calls were also a measure of how far she'd gone from my side. Eldest and I have always been close, but she doesn't need that closeness as much now.

Eldest's independence is good and right and normal and wonderfully healthy -- as is, I suppose, my sadness at realizing she is now more herself than she is my child. Sometimes the mixed-feelingness of life is a challenge. I think most of us try to cope by putting 'good' things on one end of our emotional see-saw and 'bad' things on the other, as if that's what balance is about. But equilibrium comes more from letting all our conflicting feelings sit side-by-side, like a bench full of chattering children, acknowledging each one in his turn.

Or at least that's my experience.

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Connecting to others

I popped up to see Eldest's choir concert at college on Sunday, following Snuggler's opening performance in Anne of Green Gables on Saturday (she was Marilla; Little Guy has a small part).On the bus I read The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone)Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale. Good read, funny writer, worth getting.

The concert was good. As my mind effortlessly wafted between the music (Haydn's Creation) and other worthwhile (and not worthwhile) thoughts, it occurred to me that the anti-gravity thing that happens in with my brain during a live concert doesn't occur with recorded music. And I wondered why that might be.

Part of it is that seeing the source of the music -- the seventy singers and forty orchestra members, the three soloists, the conductor -- makes a difference. Maybe not the difference between eating a McChicken sandwich (if one does that sort of thing) and raising/killing/plucking/cooking a chicken oneself, but sight + hearing means we're engaged with real people, not just their output. We see the joy on the faces of the singers, and we wonder about this one's blue hair or that one's glasses, and somewhere in our being we are aware that those other beings are like us and different than us and are doing something for us.

Then there's the matter of being in an audience. A concert is a different thing than "me and my playlist" or "me and the people who act and think like me" (a fact driven home by the wondrous rapture of the man sitting next to you or the teen texting in front of you). There's an "us"-ness that we lose when we live in the isolation of our preferences.  And maybe that's something we want to lose from time to time, but I daresay, in light of reading The Winter of Our Disconnect, that often when we connect almost-exclusively to our desires we inadvertently disconnect from other things we deep-down need. Like... each other.

In which we deal with choices and challenges

We're facing a problem that I'm not, as yet, at liberty to describe. It's one of those gut-groaners, the kind that makes other folks go a bit blank when you tell them. Not life-threatening, but life-altering. There are ways to work on it, ways to deal with it. So that's what we'll do. I mean, what choice do we have? [Insert Jewish mother's voice here:] We should run around like headless chickens?

I've often suspected that despite our nationwide addiction to having abundant choices on everything from vacation destinations to nail clippers, most of the real decisions in life are T-intersections. You can rise to the task at hand, or not. You can knit your family closer together, or let people drift apart. You can grow closer to God, or push him away. You can be generous of heart, or fold in on yourself. You can learn how to cope, or expect others to cope with your lack of coping. '

Hence I find that having a few simple rules of life helps with making good choices. Back when I was single and life ran on a spectrum from self-centered to self-indulged, I had one rule of thumb:

Never do anything you wouldn't want to see in a headline in the New York Post. 

It kept me out of a lot of trouble.


When I got married I made up a simple rule of thumb for conflict:

Always do what will strengthen the marriage in the long run. 

It's made apologies and tongue-biting a lot easier. It's shortened the sulk-cycle, and improved my forgiving-ness.


When it comes to dealing with major crises and thorny problems and eye-crossing difficulties, my rule of thumb is this:

The question isn't what's the best thing to do, but what's the right thing to do.

Maybe it's age talking here, but I am utterly certain that I don't know -- can't know, will never know -- the best solution to any given problem. I do all the necessary legwork, and gather all the right information, and figure out what I think is the best path. But I am not omniscient. Invariably I find out information later that would have colored or changed my decision. I know: it's happened many, many times.


So I've kind of given up on getting too attached to particular solutions.I've learned that it's far, far better to focus on being the kind of person I want to be than to hyper-focus on the kind of outcome I desire. I do the best I can with the information I have, and then to say my most-often-used prayer:

Here's what I think. If You have a better plan, make it clear, Lord. Just make it clear.

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Blast it!

Today's round of chores consisted of washing the windows. Our apartment is several stories up, so windows are a bit tricky. There's the business of flipping in the recalcitrant windows (and making sure the kids don't flip themselves out), and we're still learning  the lesson that if you don't do a job well you get to do it twice. Or more. (Even I often have to do windows more than once. Those streaks are annoying.)

The one thing I haven't ever figured out is how to wash the screens. We have child guards on the lower portion of our windows, which prevent pulling the screens in. I'm not about to dangle out the upper portion of the window to scrub anything. However, we seem to be making progress in the resourcefulness department, because today Dancer and Little Guy came up with a solution:

The screens are nice and sparkly now. And the plants in the courtyard below are watered, too.

Dumpster dreaming

It's feeling like spring today, and I'm feeling like renting a dumpster. Maybe it's because the kids are doing my spring cleaning for me this year (they're now on chore #23), but I'm dreaming of disposing of things. Other people fantasize about vacationing in Disneyworld; my ideal holiday would be to send everyone away and toss a third of our belongings.

It's not that I'm an ascetic. And it's not that we have a lot of belongings compared to, say, people who live in 2500 square feet of space. I'd just like to turn down the volume on the stuff component of life. It weighs on me. Unfortunately, I'm in the minority here.

My kids do play with almost every toy we own. They tend to use many things at once. It's no fun to play with just Playmobil or just Legos or just stuffed animals or just blocks. I suspect their satisfaction rating depends primarily on how much floor space is obscured, or how many outfits can be worn in an hour. And of course the more complex the set-up, the more compelling the argument that it really has to remain intact (to be stepped on at midnight by a sleepy mom, or ruined by ignorant siblings who don't realize that you can't sit in that chair!)

The truth is, if all my kids had to play with was a handful of rubber bands and three paper clips, they could find things to do for hours. A bit of clay this week, a few popsicle sticks the next, some paper and scissors... there's a certain creative appeal to minimalism. At least, there is to me. But my kids revel in excess, in choice, in the use of kitchen implements in unusual ways that prevent further use as utensils.

So I repress the impulse to call Goodwill for a van-size pick-up. I sort through belongings and books and clothes with an eye toward who needs these things more than we do. I surreptitiously give away the few things I think no one will miss. And now that we've finally succeeded in passing on our board books and baby toys, I have a glimmer of hope that some day we'll downsize. And perhaps some night I'll be wistful for those times when, half-asleep, I stepped on a tiny Lego on the way to the bathroom.

Perhaps.

A mom's game of 20 (or more) questions

Will Dancer get into the ballet school for which she auditioned?
Why hasn't Eldest emailed me back?
Why so snarly yesterday?
When will I have time to talk to Andrew?
[Reminder to self: check up on Big Guy's high school applications]
How am I going to...?
Can we afford four more weeks of art class?
When's the best time to talk to the kids about...?
[Reminder to self: call your mom on Mother's Day]
Which week do we get paid?
When will Snuggler learn to...?
Should I relent, or stick to my guns on that?
[Reminder to self: Buy paper towels if you want the kids to wash the windows]

Do I fly to Detroit with Dancer to get her to the summer program, or have her go alone and save the money?
Did I send in the proofs for that newsletter?
What time is Snuggler's soccer game on Saturday?
Did I write down the date of...?
[Reminder to self: buy fruit]
What was it I just forgot?
[Reminder to self: recharge phone]
When was the last time I made Little Guy write in his journal?
[Reminder to self: check bank balance]
Should I buy Little Guy the supplies to make that circuit board, or not?
[Reminder to self: make kids pick up before bed]
[Reminder to self: too many carbs in the meals today]
What will I make ahead for dinner when I go visit Eldest? (Will they eat it?)
[Reminder to self: ask the super to snake the tub]
[Reminder to self: buy tiles for bathroom]
Where will Little Guy sleep if Big Guy returns home?
Where are we on kids' toothpaste?

How am I going to...?

And you? What do you ask yourself?

A thought blew through...

The weather report said it would be 60 and sunny yesterday; at 9am on the soccer field it was 48, cloudy and gusty. As I huddled around my cup of tea and chatted with other parents, my mood rose and fell in inverse proportion to the wind. When the sun came out and the wind died down it was as if I were a different person on a different day. And then more clouds blew in, and the temperature -- and my spirits -- dropped again.

It was kind of amusing to observe how quickly my feelings shifted. I wondered: did cave men and women go through this? Is it an age-related thing? Does it matter which part of the country you come from? Are some people more susceptible than others to the weather?