not so grounded

Now I'm Freaked

Maddy had a Plan.  Tired of school mid-junior year she decided she would take a gap year after graduation and do Americorp's National Civilian Community Corp, in Denver or Sacramento.  It's a cool program -- 18-24 year olds live on a campus in small groups and fan out across the country for various 2-3 week service projects.  Trail cutting, house-repair, storm cleaning for a total of ten months.  Then back home with $4500 in college money.  It was a great plan.

Until school started, the college race began, her friends visiting schools with a frenzy, working on applications, freaking out about leaving home.  And Maddy panicked.  She suddenly felt uncertain about what she might feel certain about come next August.  Maybe she'll want to take a year off and Do Good.  Maybe she'll want to move to California with her friend Chloe, get an airless studio apartment and a couple of minimum wage jobs and get residency.  Or maybe she'll want to share a cramped dorm room with another kind of freaked 18 year old on a bucolic campus and complain about Freshman Writing & Composition like half the other 18 year olds across the country.  

Suddenly my clear and decisive daughter is lost without a decision.  Which panics me a little, too. 

But I won't let her know that.  Instead, (admittedly, softly glad to feel useful with this sudden reappearance of her need for a Mom) I'm nurturing a new Plan.  Exploring All Options plan.  We'll look at schools more earnestly.  We'll explore our California connections.  She can apply to Americorps.  And we'll maintain confidence that the right choice will emerge at the right time.

All the while reminding her again that the hype's not worth the worry.  Sure, the decision's important but not life-threatening important.  Not even life-changing important.  And certainly not Right and Wrong important.  All the options are wonderful, all the roads carry her to cool new experiences and destinations, and she will enjoy any journey she picks.

As our friend Chris says, it's all Good.

Hopefully we'll remember that.

Best Laid Plans

Maddy had a Plan.  Tired of school mid-junior year she decided she would take a gap year after graduation and do Americorp's National Civilian Community Corp, in Denver or Sacramento.  It's a cool program -- 18-24 year olds live on a campus in small groups and fan out across the country for various 2-3 week service projects.  Trail cutting, house-repair, storm cleaning for a total of ten months.  Then back home with $4500 in college money.  It was a great plan.

Until school started, the college race began, her friends visiting schools with a frenzy, working on applications, freaking out about leaving home.  And Maddy panicked.  She suddenly felt uncertain about what she might feel certain about come next August.  Maybe she'll want to take a year off and Do Good.  Maybe she'll want to move to California with her friend Chloe, get an airless studio apartment and a couple of minimum wage jobs and get residency.  Or maybe she'll want to share a cramped dorm room with another kind of freaked 18 year old on a bucolic campus and complain about Freshman Writing & Composition like half the other 18 year olds across the country.  

Suddenly my clear and decisive daughter is lost without a decision.  Which panics me a little, too. 

But I won't let her know that.  Instead, (admittedly, softly glad to feel useful with this sudden reappearance of her need for a Mom) I'm nurturing a new Plan.  Exploring All Options plan.  We'll look at schools more earnestly.  We'll explore our California connections.  She can apply to Americorps.  And we'll maintain confidence that the right choice will emerge at the right time.

All the while reminding her again that the hype's not worth the worry.  Sure, the decision's important but not life-threatening important.  Not even life-changing important.  And certainly not Right and Wrong important.  All the options are wonderful, all the roads carry her to cool new experiences and destinations, and she will enjoy any journey she picks.

As our friend Chris says, it's all Good.

Hopefully we'll remember that.

Our Own Wheels

Maddy got her driver's license three seconds after she was eligible.  My new husband -- despite knowing her only 18 months -- felt true pangs of bitter sweet sadness when she whizzed by him on her first solo journey.

First time I watched her back herself out of our driveway I leapt gleefully into the air. 

Before Maddy's birth driving made me feel exhilaratingly free. Sure, I remain an avid roadtripper, but adding a child, her friends, and all their car-gear changed the dynamic.  Sixteen years is a long time to shepherd someone hither and yon.  When she was first born I had nightmares about accidently leaving her in the car or driving off without her.  I remember the glorious first day she loaded herself into the backseat while I marveled at loading groceries with two free hands.  When she was six I quit my job in large part to take her & pick her up from school, cart her and her friends to dance or swimming or back home for ice cream and afternoon goofing around.  For a decade (most of which single, sole-breadwinner mom) I squeezed my own home-based business in between 8:30 and 2:30 (with some added bleery-eyed hours after she went to sleep).  I scheduled conference calls and meetings around carpool, and arranged a flotilla of other drivers when I had to leave town, half of which invariably fell through mid-trip.

I loved those years, really I did. It is delicious to overhear a bunch of kids in the backseat who seem to forget the driver has hearing and a functioning cerebral cortex. 

But truth is, omg I love Maddy's driver's license even more.  I am reunited with a freedom I had long forgotten (not to mention a car so clean I feel compelled to take off my shoes).  I can work as long as I want, schedule a meeting smack in the middle of the afternoon if I choose.  I can take a long walk on my favorite trail when my head needs clearing or my muscles need stretching, and not along the busy road outside the dance studio during Maddy's 45-minute ballet class.  I can meet my friends for dinner any night I want.  I even make phone calls when I'm not in the car.

And sometimes -- dare I say it outloud lest I break some magic spell -- I send Maddy to the store.

My 17-year old daughter, Maddy, started her senior year of high school today.  No big deal logistics-wise:  familiar teachers, friends, social gig, floorplan ... she can park her little red CRV in the senior lot ... bought her own school supplies ... 1st day outfit easily selected.  After three years she knows the drill.  My entire contribution took about five minutes -- packed her lunch, made her a smoothie to sip through morning classes, stowed them in her front seat as she got herself effortlessly out the door.

But the significance hasn't escaped us, even if we've let familiar routines keep it at bay.  My only child begins her last year at home, and we know it'll mean something.  Even if we're not sure what. 

Goodbye-Hello Maddy

"I'm going to write a blog about your last year at home, the whole transition thing ... from high school to college, childhood to independence, full-time mom to empty nest ... how it feels for you and for me."

"Okay, whatever."

Home Again Home Again ...

Just returned from 3 weeks away, from home in the Blue Ridge Appalachians several thousand miles north west to western Washington.  Our family of four crashed with close (and very kind & accommodating) friends in Bellingham. We did tons of cool stuff (photos on FB):  watched 3 pods of frolicking Orcas, kayaked past bald eagles and their nests, skylight train to Vancouver, very fast dips in glacial water ... wild flowers, volcanoes, big ol' juicy oysters, nightly Mallards ice cream (Maddy always got basil), and camping camping & more camping.  (Okay, a little too much camping for the rest of my family ...)

Three weeks is a great amount of time to be away.  Cleared my head, my perspectives, my priorities, my schedule, my stress.  For three weeks I did as I pleased.

Interestingly, I worked a lot.  And loved every minute of it.  This trip, more than any other, allowed me to enjoy my professional life seamlessly.  I worked whenever & wherever I dang well felt like it, played just the same. Completely unencumbered by physical location - just my laptop, wireless, blackberry and iPod (free Kindle app, favorite reading tucked into my pocket).  Calls got made, work got submitted, bills got paid, I yakked with friends, I kept up with our dog-sitter ... all while walking new streets enough that they grew familiar.

I suspect I sound delusional.  That vacations are supposed to Unplug, not ramp up the Plugging.  But I felt exhilarating freedom, permanently released from an office, a house, four walls and a land line.  Untethered from a permanent address that defines where I technically belong.  From the static practice that I am a local Here and an interloper There.  That one place is home and all others are not.  

To be sure, I am delighted to be back in my own bed, watching the summer rain dance on the poplars by my windows.  But it's also nice to know that in only a few weeks the arid western vistas grew just as sweet.  Imagine how different the world would be if everyone felt Home no matter where we were?