When my girls were little I don't think I gave a lot of thought to what parenting a young adult would look like. I
be keeping me up at night, especially living many states away.
Oh and also, worry is the enemy. You need to know that.
Daughter1 was in a wedding in Michigan this past weekend so she flew out on Thursday and then back to DC last night. It was storming up and down the east coast, but I tried not to think about her up in the air while the wind whipped and lightning lit up the sky.
She had to make connections in Detroit both ways, but on the way out Thursday she was meeting up with two other bridesmaids flying in from Alabama. They would all three then get the same connection for the second leg of the journey further north. Daughter1 arrived in Detroit in plenty of time to make the 2nd flight which was leaving at 1:50 PM.
At 1:25 she phoned me to say the flight was boarding and her two friends were not at the gate. The girls were sharing a rental car at their final destination which was an hour's drive from the airport so she wasn't sure what to do. She was feeling anxious and needed me to feel anxious too.
Actually she needed me to be the voice of calm and do my worrying in private which is what I did. Mostly I pray but the edges sometimes fray with worry. Worry is part of my DNA and occasionally likes to rear its ugly head when it comes to daughters out of reach. This was one such weekend.
Young adult children living far from home call and tell you their car won't start as they are leaving for work. Or they can't locate their Social Security card and need it right this very minute. You are on the receiving end of life's everyday frustrations, but are just far enough away not to be of any practical help. You learn to live with this but sometimes you wish you could hop in your car and come to the physical rescue. You settle for being the safe place to land.
I told Daughter1 to just get on the plane and sort out the next bit once she reached her final destination. That's what moms do. We listen to our children's cares and absorb them into our own bloodstream. They feel lighter and the knowledge of that makes me feel lighter too. And heavier, but mostly lighter. At 1:44 I got a text saying, 'They made it!' They had six whole minutes to spare which in the world of 20-somethings is the equivalent of three days.
Daughter2 has been in grad school pretty much the entire summer and in her spare time is gainfully employed in a lovely shop and also babysitting from time to time. She was supposed to go out with friends who were in from out of town Saturday evening, but she texted me after she got off work and said she wasn't going because she wasn't feeling good.
Not feeling good?
Do you have a fever?
Stomach ache?
Sore throat?
Are you sad?
Does your mother drive you crazy when she peppers you with questions?
She said she was just feeling eh. Eh? What is eh?
I'm over 500 miles away and will be needing the definition of eh please.
She texts me back a smiley face and says she's just tired and going to bed and will call me on Sunday. Something niggles.
Sunday comes. No phone call. Minutes pass, then hours, and at some point I know she's at work. At least I think she's at work. Maybe she's all alone, sick as a dog, laying on the bathroom floor in her apartment. How will I know?
Sometimes this is what the inside of a mother-brain looks like.
A mangled jangled criss-crossed mess of logic, love, and lunacy.
I text.
Did you know Mati Makonnen, an engineer from Finland, is credited with inventing text messaging?
If you have young adult children you can make a regular old phone call anytime and listen to the echo of your own head, or you can text and get a near instantaneous response. Daughter2's phone is never out of reach and no matter how ridiculous my question she always answers.
Except for yesterday.
No reply.
I have a talk with myself and tell myself I'm being silly.
She's at work. She'll call later.
And of course she does, because she wasn't lying on the cold hard bathroom floor, but was instead selling beautiful clothing to customers at her job. When she calls however, we're in the middle of an insane electrical storm and because worry has spread like a virus now I tell her I'll call back when the danger of electrocution has passed.
And I do, but she's getting ready to meet a friend for dinner. She's still not feeling 100% so I tell her to text me when she gets home and she assures me she will.
Except she doesn't.
Oi.
My mother radar was just pinging off the charts all weekend. There was no good or logical reason but if you're a mother you know sometimes radar malfunctions. Worry gets into your wiring and short circuits your brain.
I head up to bed around 11 and send an innocent text asking if she's home. No reply so I wait. I read for a while and check my phone but still, nothing, nada, zilch. At 12:30 I send another text. I wake up during the night and look at my phone's blank screen. I get up in the morning and see the same.
The mind of a mother is oh so tricky sometimes. I resist calling her because I know she will think I am nuts. Because in this instance I am.
Instead I look around for my sensible self and go read my Bible. I start with the verse that says take every thought captive and move on to the verses about not worrying. I feel better. I blast some praise music.
I know daughter2 is babysitting for a 12-week old this morning which is a whole 'nother thing but that worry must be set aside so I can focus all my anxiety on my immediate worry.
Did she ever come home last night?
Apparently the cage door swung open and some of those captive thoughts flew free. I manage to reel 'em back in with a little help from
Paul.
Did she come home last night? Yeah. She did. Of course she did. At 9 pm. She was tired and went to bed. I know this because after another trip to my sunroom which is my favorite space to be still and know that He is God I get a grip on my thoughts.
Ping. A text... 'Just saw your text...I came home and went straight to bed. Will call you after babysitting.'
She comes home every night. She is sweetness personified, making straight A's in grad school and holding down two part time jobs. Last week, between work and exams, she spontaneously made a lasagna from scratch and delivered it to my sister after my brother in law was hospitalized. She takes care of 12 week old babies and multiple toddlers and I don't need to worry because she holds them close and talks and smiles and coos at them. She knows CPR and The Wheels on the Bus and how to be silly. She pays her bills on time and gets herself to work and school and home again, where she remembers to latch the deadbolt without any help from me whatsoever.
There's a little saying I saw on
Pinterest that said, 'How come when I call my parents and they don't answer it's no big deal but when they call me and I don't answer it's WW3?'
Because we're parents, that's why.
My girls and I are close. I speak to one or both of them pretty much every day. In spite of how this post reads, I'm not a mom who calls her kids 10 times a day or even every day. I am always happy to talk but I leave the calling up to them. They have busy lives and I prefer they call when its convenient for them to talk as opposed to me calling and them feeling like they have to talk. Every now and then something flies onto my radar. I don't ignore my mother sense because quite often it's legitimate. Issues need to be addressed and prayed over and released. Other times though, it's my old enemy worry. It might begin with something small, but worry is like rain to a dry garden. It makes things grow and that's as true in mothering as it is in all areas of our lives.
Sometimes I think about what I was like at ages 24 and almost 22. I remember how capable I felt. How confident I was in whatever I wanted to try. How little thought I gave to what my mother must have felt having me far from home, very independent, and nary a cell phone in site.
Did she look at me sometimes and feel astonished to see a fully grown adult standing where a knee- socked little girl stood just a blink or two before? Would she say the worry sometimes fell like rain?
When my grown up daughters call to tell me they have a fever, car trouble, or a broken heart they are suddenly the dancing, pony-tailed girls of yesteryear.
In spite of my best intentions, sometimes the worry still falls like rain.
In those moments I remind myself gardens need sunshine and I'd best go find some.
