I Don't Know How I'm Doing

Beyond the Book: I'm trying to do new things

We’ve now been in Paris for 10 days and our days have mostly looked quiet, even idyllic. I don’t have any work deadlines. We’re staying in a loft apartment filled with art. We’ve wandered the city, grabbed fresh pastries every morning, had late-night drinks with friends, taken naps, eaten a bunch of delicious food. It’s almost like we’re in a movie about visiting France.

But internally - in this terrifying amusement park of a brain of mine - a lot has been happening. A huge goal of this trip was to figure out what life is like for my partner and I in a new space. This is part of our long-term prep for whenever the kiddo decides to move on to his adult adventures in a few years. This is a space of adulthood that I’ve never had, I was 19 when I became pregnant with my eldest child. I’ve been a mom for my entire adult life.

When my oldest went off to college in 2020 my partner said that he had never seen me look as sad as I did that day. And pretty much everyone who knew me well hinted that I might want to do some mental preparation for when my youngest moved out. And as we get closer to that day - he is going to be entering his sophomore year of high school - I’ve been working on letting him have the freedom he needs to become the young man he wants to be.

This is not easy for me. The last few pandemic years have been very rough on both of my kids, and I’ve worked very hard to help get them through various crises. And while a year or two ago seems like a lifetime ago to a teen, to me it feels like we were in crisis just yesterday and if I take my eyes off of them for a minute, everything will fall apart.

I’ve been working on this a lot in therapy. And my teen has been testing that work by being THE MOST TEENAGER of teenager these last few months. I’ve been reciting what I’ve learned in therapy over and over again: What do I know to be true about my kiddo right now? How is today different than in the past? In what ways has my son grown and changed?

I’ve been doing pretty good - not great - but I’ve made a lot of progress. This kid has tried some teenage shit that would have had me falling apart last year, but here I am, still holding it together for the most part.

He and his best friend came with us for the first week of this trip, before flying back to Atlanta to stay at said friend’s house for a week, and before the kiddo flies home to be with his dad for a few weeks. This will be the longest I have been away from him in his entire life. This will be the longest that I haven’t been responsible for the daily care of a child in over 21 years.

I’ve been nervous about this and excited at the same time. Can I do it? Can I enjoy my time in Paris without the kids? Can I be present with my partner? Or will I dissolve into a puddle of anxiety?

I feel like, in order to make this transition easier, my kiddo tried his best to annoy me as much as possible the week he was here with us. Our very first morning in Paris, I woke up to him yelling down at me through the skylight above our bed - he’d found out how to climb up onto the roof of the apartment building and thought it would be fun to scare the shit out of us at 7am.

Pretty much the rest of the week was spent trying to control some of the chaos of two 15 year old boys who both packed harmoniums - sorry, melodicas: much smaller and more annoying - in their suitcases, or trying to deal with their extreme sullenness when we requested that they spend even 5 minutes hanging out with us. “I love them but I can’t wait until they leave,” was a phrase that both my partner and I said at least a few times.

But the night before I was sending them on a plane back to the States I was an absolute mess. I’ve never sent my kiddo on an international flight without me. What if it was a rough flight? What if he was scared and I wasn’t there? I was up half the night in a panic while he was sound asleep downstairs.

I found myself repeating a truth that I’ve been struggling with for a few years now: “You can’t keep them safe.”

Gawd, that’s the hardest part of parenting. Everything in our bones tells us that we have to keep them safe. That’s like, 80% of the job. And when they are small, squirmy worms that we can literally wrap up and tie to us, that seems doable. Even when they are toddlers trying to jump off of every elevated surface, it seems doable. But as they approach teen years, we realize that we’ve been fooling ourselves. We can’t keep them safe. We can try to teach them how to be more safe. We can try to create safe spaces for them. But if we want them to be happy healthy adults one day, we have to let them find their own way in the world - and that’s terrifying because have you MET a teenager before? They do not make great decisions. In fact, sometimes it seems like they are actively trying to make the worst decisions.

In the morning I woke up the kids and told them that it was time to pack if we were going to get to the airport in time. My kid looked at me and asked, with a flash of concern in his eyes, “You’re going with us to the airport right?”

“Of course,” I reassured him. He sighed with relief and went back to playing music on the melodica and absolutely not packing.

On the train to the airport I tried to find a middle ground between my worry and his need for independence.

Me: “So you know how I worry all the time when you’re gone and you think it’s hella annoying?”

Teen: “Yeah.”

Me: “So if I just heard from you once a day, so I knew you were okay, that would help a lot. It doesn’t have to be anything big, doesn’t have to even be a call. Just a text saying “I’m alive and well,” would suffice. Then I wouldn’t bug you with “how are you doing?” every few hours.”

Teen, actively rolling his eyes: “Ok fine mom.”

Teen immediately begins loudly dictating pre-made messages telling me that he’s not dead.

When we got to the airport and reached the security area, where Gabriel and I could no longer go with them, we gave them hugs goodbye. My kiddo gave me a big kiss on the cheek, which he never does. We watched them go through security until we couldn’t see them anymore. Then we hung out at the airport until I received a blurry photo of him and his friend on the plane.

About 10 hours later, I received another blurry photo of him hanging out in bed with his friend’s dogs. This morning, I received a photo of the massive mosquito bite he got on his arm.

It’s only been two and a half days since the kids left and I now am always aware of what time it is in Atlanta. I calculate it in my head and wonder what the kiddo is up to, and then I try to let it go and trust that he’s having a good time. I’m taking walks with my partner, and we met up with friends for drinks and only stepped away once for parenting duties (a phone call from the older kid who tweaked his back at work).

I don’t know how I’m doing. I’m trying to do something very new for me, in a very new space. It looks like nothing on the outside, but it’s everything right now. It feels like something I’ve been building towards for over 20 years, and yet it looks like just being an adult. I’m not sure who’s really growing up here: this teenager, or me.

Description: a photo of my teenage son and his best friend walking through Paris.