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MapQuest My Life, Please!
By Amy Nathan |
July 14, 2008
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Read more: kids away from home, summer camp, view from here
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When my daughter started kindergarten eight years ago, I spent three weeks looking at the clock. What was I supposed to do with two kids in school full-time? My son was in third grade, so long days apart were nothing new for us – but with both kids gone, this stay-at-home mom was alone for six hours a day. Six hours. Woo hoo, say you? Oprah, The View, the news and 180 minutes of daytime soap operas, said me. I got nothing accomplished. Nada. I watched TV. I probably went to Target. I’m sure I walked in circles and undoubtedly I talked to the dogs. I didn’t know how to do anything when I had actually had the time to start and finish whatever I wanted. Don’t hate me, but I had too much time on my hands.
I got over it... and for the past eight years, from mid-August to early-June, I wonder how as a single mom I’m supposed to work, keep house and see friends on six hours a day during the week.
Now my kids aren’t little anymore. My son is in a summer school program five hours a day. He’s 16 and he drives himself everywhere he goes.
My daughter is the one for whom I set a schedule. Up and out for day camp, pick up, meals, friends over, errands and a bed time routine. I leave her alone, but not for hours at a time.
And now... she’s the one leaving. For a month.
With two 42”, carefully labeled cargo-style duffel bags big enough to hold most of her wardrobe and bedroom furniture, we hit the road this morning for the boonies of Michigan.
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And even though I passed a Coach outlet on the way home, I drove straight on through, because I have a lot of clock watching to do between now and the 9th of August.
This is not the first time she’s going away, but it is the first time she’s going for a month instead of 2 weeks. That’s 28 days instead of 12, not that anyone is counting. And I wonder, with so much extra time on my hands – will anything at all get accomplished? And while that’s the plan, I’m not really good at sticking to plans.
As for camp, it’s my pleasure to send her – her adventurous spirit is quelled with canoeing and water skiing, rock climbing and rifle shooting. She dances, goes on field trips, plays cards and I’m sure there’s lots of giggling. There is song-singing and canteen-raiding, nail-polishing and horseback riding.
Nobody here is doing any of that, except for the nail-polishing.
She meets girls who are very much like her, from places near and far. She bonds with counselors and instructors and feels secure in their care. She chooses her own meals, makes her bed, keeps track of her stuff and writes letters to family and friends.
She’s safe, but she’s independent. She misses us, but can’t wait to go back every year.
But a month without the younger of my two kids at home – means no schedule. No routine. I work from home, I’m a writer. Sometimes I write in the morning, sometimes all day long, sometimes at night, sometimes in pajamas, oftentimes with my hair in a clip. But with a 13-year-old at home, you have get up and out, you have to do things for them and with them. And my daughter and I spend a lot of time together – cooking, shopping, watching TV, running errands, hanging out and having fun. Even when she has friends over, I have to be present.
“It’s great that you’re going to get a break,” a friend said.
“I’ll let you know if it’s great,” I replied.
I know that I will have merely a self-imposed regimen, a schedule only constrained by the needs of a 16-year old son. And in case you don’t have a 16 year old son -- that basically means hot meals and money for gas.
I know that more time should mean many things – more work done, more reading, more relaxing, more time with friends, time alone with my son. All those things are good things. Very good things.
My goal here is to not be inhibited by the lack of constraints on my time. I’ll need to barrel right through that 3:30 day camp pick-up time like it’s noon.
I’m such a rebel.
And while I don’t need MapQuest to drive to camp I would love technology to help me navigate the next four weeks.
I could just type in “four weeks with a 16 year old” and make sure my destination wasn’t anywhere near “crazy” and far away from “bored”. I could make sure my journey was filled with time together with my son, time with friends and extra time for writing. It would show me the way to get it all accomplished. Oh, and if I had my way, it would also do the laundry.
After all, gadgets big and small make it easy for us to figure out how to get wherever we want to go. Why do this just for a trip? Why not for life in general – it is a journey after all.
I think this new technology would work well for my friends sending kids off to college. Just as they arrived at the corner of Empty Nest and Depressed, deciding whether they’re heading North to the Land of the Redecorated Bedroom or South to the Center of Sorrowful Shrine, they could plug in where they wanted life to go and presto – it would tell them how to get there.
I think I’ll work this idea in the next four weeks, since two years from now I’ll be wondering what to do with all the extra time I’ll have with a 15 year old daughter and a son away at college until Winter Break.
Although his room does have a fabulous desk... and a very big window.
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Amy Nathan lives and writes near Chicago where she is mom to two teenagers and three big dogs. In addition to her venerable career with The Imperfect Parent, Amy's writing has been published in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Parent, The Huffington Post, Washington Post Online and in regional parenting and women's magazines and literary journals nationwide. When she's not folding laundry or writing her novel, she can be found wandering around the world wide web. |
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