And So It Begins: Welcome Home

The Teenager came home yesterday.

I waited for two hours, tracking her plane as it landed, sat on the tarmac for a bit, and then pulled into the gate. She cleared customs quickly and only requested a ginger ale be waiting when she came out for a turbulence-induced queasy belly.

I didn't recognize her immediately as she strode through the crowd at International Arrivals. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she was all in black; tall, confident. Then I saw her, a moment before she saw me. Her face lit up when our eyes met, and I had the pleasure of my teenaged daughter running to greet me in public.

I imagine this is just the beginning of the times I will be picking her up at airports.

I thought I would miss her more in the longing, lonely sense of missing someone, but mostly I just felt elated that she was out in the world and proud that I was able to send her there. There were definitely moments this week when I missed her chatter, and the hugs I got when I picked her up and before she went to bed were sorely missed, but mostly I was glad to have sent her off.

Parenting seems to always be a balance between two things. When they are little, you are balancing keeping them safe (i.e., poking their eye out on the corner of the coffee table) with letting them learn new things (like how to walk). In adolescence, right now it seems to be letting go and enfolding.

I have to let her leave me so that I can feel the pleasure of her return.

I have to let her make mistakes but then be there to figure out where to go from there.

She has to know that as much as I want her to come home I  want her to experience the world in equal measure.

These truths seem self-evident, but try it once. I am so proud of the woman she is becoming, but I still remember the fat wrists and the chubby cheeks. The tiny voice. The sweet smile and delicious kisses. I want her to take her time, to savor each part of life as it comes. Even grief, in its own way, is something that must be felt and experienced. I want her to slow down as life comes rushing towards her and carries her away from me like a leaf dancing on the surface of a stream.

So instead of moaning the loss of The Teenager to the world, this morning I am vowing that I will be her home, the one person she knows will always meet her at the gate, take her in, make sure her sheets are clean and that there is a juicy, mid-rare barbecue bacon burger with fries waiting.

I think that's our job as parents, really, to teach them to be independent and make good choices, then to send them out in the world to see how we did. I am just glad she is home and that I have her until the next time. Which may be sooner rather than later, as my evil plan seems to have worked and the travel bug has bitten.

Who are you home to?

 

Single Parenting: Don't You Yell At My Child!

It's funny, but it is only just now sinking in that I am a single parent. How strange is that? I would read articles online about the struggles single parents face and think to myself about how hard it must be for all those single parents out there. Which is ironic, because with one parent of the parenting team dead you don't get much more single. I have been a little slow for the past 24 months, but I finally got it.

I am actually a single parent, and it sucks in one really unexpected way: no one will ever share my child with me the way Dane did.

Yes, dealing with financial worries and plumbing and the stupid fucking computer and discipline and The Teenager's crushes is really hard. Yes, I have friends around who will give me a break and willingly take The Teenager when she is being awful or will let me sit at their kitchen bar or table and drink really delicious cocktails or work in peace when I just can't take it anymore. Yes, the practical parts of being solely responsible for the life of another person is sometimes crushing and requires huge sacrifice, but that's not the hardest part.

The hardest part is that no one will ever share The Teenager with me on a cellular level. No one will ever look across the room when she does something amazing and feel the same kind of pride I do. No one will love her the way I do. The only other person who was there THE WHOLE TIME is now in a box on my dresser. The only person that shares the birth story (and, well, the conception also) is no longer here.

I am not currently dating anyone because I am a hermit and strangers are awful so how will I ever meet someone, but in the event that a miracle occurs and I suddenly become less critical and judgmental and meet a dude to date, he will not understand that when I say, "I just want to poke her in the eye!! What a jerk!!" that he is not really allowed to say, "I know! She's a total jerk!!" Dane could say she was a jerk and get away with it because underneath there are all those little cells that make her part of us in a very physical way, a way that prevents us from meaning too deeply what we say when we call her a jerk.

A stranger, some new dude, won't have those cells. He won't know on a cellular level about the time when she cried for five hours straight and almost fell off the bed because she refused to just LAY DOWN AND GO TO SLEEP. He won't get how compassionate she is, even when she pushes the dog away, because he doesn't really know her. He won't know when she is nervous just by looking at her hands, or how happy she is by watching her walk.

And when she is being 100% teenager he might be tempted to criticize the way she thinks, acts, or dresses, but he won't have the right to do that. To be clear, no one really has the right to do that, but some dude thinking he can waltz in here and insert commentary should probably just waltz right back on out of here.

Dating after divorce (really, the more common form of single parenthood and the whole reason for this blog, as a friend of mine is going through this right now) is probably very much the same, especially when your ex- is a shitbox. My friend's ex- is a dangerous shitbox, so in addition to being on edge when her kid is with the ex-, many states away, she has to deal with knowing that her boyfriend is happy the kid is away for awhile. I don't think it is possible to describe in words how deeply hurtful that is. It's also not grounds for a sustainable relationship, knowing that the person you are with is biding their time until The Kid is out of the picture.

Newsflash: The kid is NEVER out of the picture. Maya Angelou said that having a child is like consenting to have your heart walk around outside of your body, and I can't find a better explanation of this type of love. The kid may be off at college or in the world, but they are forever a part of you in a way that is real and true and inexplicable. When someone insults The Kid, they are insulting you, even if you are the healthiest, most non-striving parent who is not living through their child. And the insult is not a flesh wound; it's deep, slow to scab, easily re-opened with the smallest conflict.

I have another single parent friend who deals with this by just never introducing her boyfriend of many years to the kids. Or rather, they have been introduced, but the contact is minimal.

Are you a dating single parent? How do you deal with this thorny issue?

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A Jumble Of Thoughts

You know those days when you have so much going on that you can't seem to get it together? Thoughts and actions swirl together like a tornado and you end up flipped around six ways to Sunday. On days like these, it's all I can do not to back my car into a stationary object or lock myself out of the house.

This entire week has been like that.

From dealing with the rehab and having to make snap design decisions to organizing writing tasks so that not only am I making money but I am also making art to negotiating how much parental involvement in teen technology is too much, here's what's been happening that has prevented me from actually writing at all this week:

Mercury in Retrograde

Blame it on the planets, for sure, but technology and communication has been giving the Kolbeck household fits. My computer continues to occasionally shut off whenever it feels like it, and it has been running slower than molasses in January. Additionally, The Child dropped her phone in a PUBLIC TOILET on our no-technology outing last Sunday #irony), so she has been coming to terms with the fact that she must pay the $150 deductible AGAIN for a new one.

This is all challenging enough without adding the conversation of how much parental monitoring of technology is too much. The Child believes that it is an invasion of her privacy. I have pointed out that while I reserve the right to pick up her phone and leaf through her inbox, Instagram, whatever, I rarely do. I also pointed out that I am home alone all day and could easily rifle through her personal belongings, but I absolutely don't. I believe she is entitled to private thoughts and time away from her mother in that way, but for the next three years and four months, I am the boss of her and am responsible for her well-being. That includes attempting to head off dangerous mistakes if I see them happening (e.g., assholes online).

It should be noted that The Child has done nothing to raise any suspicion, but I don't want to be one of Those Parents, you know, the ones who insist that their precious angel couldn't possibly do anything untoward. Teenagers are dumb; their decision-making muscles are flabby. In many ways, it's not their fault. They require guidance and limits and boundaries; we are trying to figure out what is reasonable and fair. I have to balance wanting to keep The Child safe with allowing her to unfold her wings a bit.

If you have kids, I would love to know how you deal with this issue. Please comment below. Suggestions are always appreciated!!

House Rehab

So we aren't doing it ourselves, but it turns out that there are lots of decisions to be made when rehabbing a house, some of which can be very expensive, and some of which stack onto each other in a Jenga-like tower where if you pull out the wrong faucet shape or floor covering the whole house looks awful and doesn't work.

If you are not an interior designer, one room is a struggle, much less the whole house. And if you have trouble making a decision (I am a bit of a waffler) it can take ages to decide between polished chrome and oil-rubbed brass hardware for the tub because that influences the ENTIRE BATHROOM. And that decision, turns out, is SUPER EXPENSIVE.

$500+ on a tub faucet and drain assembly and one shower head/shower turner on-er thing. That's a lot of cheddar.

Add to the fact that you may or may not have decided to fabricate your bathroom vanity yourself out of reclaimed 114-year-old wood from the house, and you may or may not have also committed to building an Edison chandelier for the dining room, and the week can get a little stressful.

Pro tip: don't ask your 14-year-old for input on every decision. Because then they will expect to be consulted and if their taste is nothing like yours you are stuck. Let them decorate their own room and what will be their bathroom, knowing that when they move out you can always paint over it.

Writing for Dummies

Being a freelance writer is incredible. My time is my own, and I can do whatever I want whenever I want, like work whenever and wherever I want to.

It's also a bit problematic because I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and sometimes I want to do anything but write. So there's that. If you are a bit of a procrastinator, this can be an issue if, say, you are having computer issues due to planetary alignment or you come down with an illness that lays you out.

Full disclosure: I have never missed a deadline, and everyone I write for has wonderful things to say about me. So there's that.

However.

I have two books in the works that I am not really allowed to talk about until they are farther along. I set myself this rule hoping that it would push me to write more on them. Thus far, limited success.

I feel like I am still balancing my work with relocation, parenting, child rearing, and yes, almost two years in, pain-in-the-ass grief and loneliness (mama needs a man friend, but that's another post).

Two of my goals this year are to procrastinate less and to be nicer to myself in my head (I can be an asshole in there sometimes). They are definitely related. When I sit down to write my books, the voice pipes in: "Why are you writing this? Aren't there eleventy million other books just like it? Who's going to read your stupid book? And you can't even get past the first chapter! You call yourself a cook? Whose recipe is that? You can't do it!"

It's the anti-cheerleader. And she's kind of a bitch.

So I would like to shut her up a little this year, and the only way I know to do that is to just write.

Do you have that cheerleader? And how do you make her shut it?

Anyway. That's a thousand words about why I haven't written here (but I've missed you!). Did your week shape up nicely, or were your thoughts a jumble like mine?

(Image: mine. It's a trash can that the City of Baltimore handed out to residents when the city slogan was "Believe." This particular trashcan is lying on the floor of the basement in the rehab.)