Growing pains: Flashbacks to yesterday

It’s about 11 in the morning and I’m in my blue room at my white desk, finishing up a story on my cat Zach who I still see slinking around corners and hiding under beds, though he hasn’t been with us physically for three months. 

The younger one is packing for her trip or patting cats or is on her computer.  I’m not sure.  I’m in a writing fog which means I’m blocking out the normal household sounds and I hear nothing but my writing voice telling me what to type. It’s not as strident or nasally as my speaking voice.  I wish I could copy it in real life. 

I spent most of the summer hearing those soft, imaginary tones dictate my thoughts, but with the advent of work and the return of my daughter, the voice has gone somewhere distant, though it’s filtering back, one raw chip at a time.     

  

My daughter has been home a week. There was an adaptive period during which I yelled at her for being annoying and she yelled at me for being annoying, then we got used to each other’s noises and fell into old familiar patterns. Now I don’t hear her anymore and she doesn’t hear me much either, unless I’m listening to something she can’t stand, like Springsteen. 

I’ve been up a few hours and so has she. I’ve hardly heard her and then I do. She’s at the threshold of my blue room. 

“Um. Mom? Um. Remember how I said my flight was tonight at 6:30? Well, um I just checked and it’s earlier. It’s at 3:55. We have to leave soon.” 

Whoosh. The fog is gone. 

My swearing is internal for once because her voice is high and I know that means she’s stressed and really all it means for me, this earlier departure, is that I go to the gym later in the day instead of in fifteen minutes, and don’t stop at the mall on the way home from the airport to browse through Crate and Barrel for table lamps I can’t afford right now anyhow.  

And she’s leaving sooner and I’m not ready for that. It wasn’t what I planned.  

I post the blog, one I’m not too thrilled with because it doesn’t feel authentic. I start wandering the house which means following her around and driving her nuts.   

I think back to when I was her age. I owned a house. I was married and pregnant with my first child, who’s now hundreds of miles away living her own life. Now my youngest is leaving me, though she really left me years ago, didn’t she? There was college, and before that high school, kindergarten, first steps, solid food. Oy.  

I push out the heavy old stuff and ask too many questions now about where she’ll be living and how she’ll get there and is she really all set? What else can I do for her?

“I’m fine mom. Really.” 

We pack the car. Each suitcase is so heavy I have to grab it by the handle and the wheels to lift it up onto my legs and then into the trunk.  It’s the I’ve packed everything I own and I’m leaving you and never coming back kind of heavy.  I can’t shake that thought. 

Nine years ago this weekend, I packed the car with my older daughter’s things, and drove her south for eight hours. Just one mile from her dorm, she turned to me and said, “This is too far away. This is a bad idea. Let’s go home.”

That’s what I’d been thinking too, all of it. It was too far. She was too young. I would miss her too much.  I knew better than to say any of that though.  Instead, I said the same thing to her that I said back when she started seventh grade at that new junior high that none of her friends had opted for. “You’re just nervous because this is something you’re not used to. Just give it time. Three weeks or so. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else. Okay?" 

The older one loved life down in DC. She stayed. She thrived. She’s still there.  

    

My younger daughter is journeying across the country to a temporary new home in San Francisco. She’s taking a 3,000 mile leap of faith.   

I drive her to the airport and park at the curb. We unload the car fast before security comes along and yells.  She’s shorter than me, by about an inch, but seems much tinier today. Maybe it’s because she’s stooped a little. She’s weighed down by her computer bag, which is strapped across her chest, and by her bursting backpack, which holds her running shoes and other irreplaceable items. Each small smooth hand grips the handle of a long, full suitcase. 

I kiss her cheek once, then kiss her again and again. I need to memorize the feel of her skin. It’s cool and young, just like her sister’s.  

I drive the hour home and can’t stop thinking about the first days of other journeys. I call her one last time, from the gym parking lot.  She’s getting set to board and can only talk for a second. 

“Yes mom. I will call you when I get off the plane.”

“Yes.  I will call you when I get to the apartment too. I’ve got to go now.”

I hit the store after the gym. My groceries for one take up too little space in the wire cart. I go back and wheel it down some more aisles. I fill it with non-perishables.  

I go home and spend forever on the computer. Her new address is just 9.87 miles from the San Francisco Airport, 4.35 miles from her internship, and 9.14 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge.  Thank you, mapquest. Her rented room is in an apartment-style condo in a six-story building on the commuter rail. The building is made of orange cement and was built in 2007. There are palm trees in front.  Thank you zillow. Thank you google images. 

It was late when I turned off the computer. The house was too quiet so I decided to watch television.  Then the phone started ringing, first one daughter, then the other. Then again and again. 

There they go.