Livin' It Up on a Friday Night, or Ghost Mom

I’m jumping back in here to the blog after a long hiatus involving work and more work and then some work, and lots of bickering with Jessie—as we tried to find our way through the new “no-rule” experiment we are trying at our house (and a few major performances involving ALL our time and energy). I will share the best of the worst with you tomorrow (involving infamous text messages and a meditation breakdown) and hope that that will bring some closure to a difficult period and lead us into a joyous summer. Or at least make you laugh. Or at least make you grateful that a)your daughter has not yet reached puberty, b) your daughter is way past puberty, c)your daughter is not my daughter, or d) you don’t have any children at all!

But just in case you were wondering what I might do with all this spare time I have not blogging, or what I do for fun on a Friday night . . . I offer you this:

627

 Yes. That was the total number of notes on Jessie’s iphone when I first opened it up Friday night. Well, to be honest, the number was actually up in the 700s, but I didn’t think to photograph the number until I started to weed through and delete some of the notes and realized just how MANY 700 and some odd notes was and how long this was going to take me—since I couldn’t just batch delete, as there might be some that she wanted to keep.

Now, you might wonder why I would be the one sorting through her notes. The simple answer is because it needed to be done. And who do you go to when something needs to be done? Ghost Mama. That’s right… Us Ghost Mamas are the ones that slip in and start the work that needs to be done, leaving the finishing (and upping the odds that tasks actually will be finished) to the ones who actually own the task. I know one Ghost Mama who is, at this actual moment, virtually lurking, from her comfortable kitchen office chair up here in Ottawa, somewhere near Humbolt Redwoods State Park in California scouting out good biker/hiker camping sites for her daughters who are cycling down the West coast. There is no doubt that technology makes Ghost Mama work much easier, but it also, as I am finding, creates a new kind of adolescent messiness that rivals the proverbial teenager’s room in the kind of madness it can create. Whole gigabytes of garbage.

So. That’s what I was doing on Friday night. Taking out the garbage. Most of which involved wedding planning, along with a few Glee scripts and an invitation to Daniel Radcliffe to come volunteer at the Foodbank where, Jess assured him “I would make sure you were treated like a normal person.”

As I started to weed through the notes (and look at the clock), I realized I could be there all night. So I narrowed it down, making sure that she knew that cleaning up her note list would be one of her chores Saturday, to just the wedding invitation list, variously labelled as: “ Who’s invited to the wedding,” “who’s coming to the wedding,” “wedding guest list,” and of course “Hollywood people invited to the wedding.”

If you were not aware, my daughter is planning her wedding to her boyfriend, Drummer Boy, who seems to be as involved in this process as she is, although he doesn’t seem to have the same level of commitment to Yes to Dress. Also note that this wedding is not high on our “to do list,” as we have told Jessie that she has to live out of the house with friends before even considering booking the Santa Monica pier for her interfaith marriage (as you can see, she has spent a lot of time of this). Given that it took Dan and I 25 years to get married, I was finding it a bit disconcerting to have to scroll through more than 300 notes dedicated to guest lists for a glitter wedding in some foreign country.

But, once I had done deleting those, we (ah, I’ve gone all communal here, having spent more than half an hour swiping my finger and tapping delete. Swipe, tap; swipe, tap; swipe tap; sip coffee; swipe tap) were down to (see the number at the top of the phone screen):

281

Woo-hoo! 281 is a perfect number. Low enough for Jessie to be able to delete or sort, high enough to make it boringly painful, perhaps painful enough to convince her that having MORE THAN 300 notes about one topic is just a bit over the top.

So it went on her Saturday to do list, along with the chores she didn’t finish throughout the week, and which she had to complete before going out on her date with Drummer Boy. Ah motivation.

When Dan and I returned from grocery shopping Saturday morning, I reminded Jess that she had to sort through the notes on her phone.

“Oh, I already did that!” she said.

“How many are left?” I replied, telling her that I could show her how to email them to herself and then convert them to word docs to ….

“None!” she blithely and proudly announced.

“None?”

“No, I deleted them all at once. I don’t really need them,” she said as she disappeared into the family room to watch something on her computer.

Dan had to pull me away from the kitchen cupboard where I was slowly, repeatedly, gently—yes gently—banging my head. 

Lead Me—Please, Please, Pu-leez—Beside Still Waters

I love my daughter. I think she loves me. But we sometimes have a difficult time expressing that love in ways that are, how shall I say it, affirming. Especially as she strikes out on her own and I try to provide a bit of an invisible safety net and some guideposts to help her navigate her way. Only I’m not always so great at being invisible and am definitely uncertain at times as to whether the guideposts are actually helpful or just an indication of my need to control. Difficult questions. Not easily answered. But definitely lived out almost every day.

Such as today, when, after an especially difficult morning that only really started at 11:30 and which quickly devolved into total resistance to doing any house/communal chores, I walked away. Gently. (I am learning to do that). I didn’t stomp. I didn’t yell. I just calmly walked away. “But I NEED you to HELP me,” she yelled. “You HAVE to help me.”

This is probably, but not completely, true. In addition to her dance, work, speaking, and advocacy commitments, she just—this morning, somewhere between finishing breakfast and brushing her teeth—made plans to have 3 friends over to cook dinner on Saturday, Drummer Boy on Sunday, another cooking date here with another friend on Wednesday, and another next Friday. “But Mom, its SOCIAL!”

Indeed.

The walking away bit, or shall I say the CALMLY walking away bit, is new for me. I’m having to practice it in good times, when the emotions aren’t so strong, so I am able to use the skill when all I really want to do is yell and stomp out of the room. Such as this morning. When, I am proud to report, I was able to say “I will be happy to help you after I get an hours’ work done and if you let me know that you are ready to work with me, cooperatively. When you are ready to work with me, then we can do it together.”

I really am beginning to think that this transition phase is more about learning new parenting skills than it is about teaching our children anything. Or maybe that’s just because I completely missed the mark the first time round, when she was younger. Whatever the reason, it exhausts me. Totally. It’s a kind of soul-sucking exhaustion that leaves me teary and tense and unable to concentrate.

So the first thing I did when I CALMLY walked away and sat at my desk to work, was open my e-mail. Where I found further proof of the existence of God(ess), or El, as Madeleine L’Engle would write. It was an invitation to a daylong workshop called Sabbatical for the Soul, which promised to lead me “beside still waters.”

I threw an air punch with my fist and continued to read. It said that with a light heart and in a supportive environment, I would “drop into the ever-present Mystery of Love and Compassion.” Mystery is right! Especially in our house!

I quickly e-mailed First United Church to see if there was any room left and got the reply: Looks like your lucky day! I have just had a cancellation so there will be room for you.

So, damn the groceries and whoever needs a ride home from dance (including Jessie). On Saturday, you will find me beside still waters.

Jessyll and Hyde, or, Unhinged By Hingsburger

It was a typical Jessie Jekyll and Hyde (or as Dan has come to refer to it,  Jessyll and Hyde) 24 hours: Failure to demonstrate even a modicum of mature behaviour (resulting in Dan and I throwing our hands up in the air and wondering if she would ever have the wherewithal to get to even a bus stop without mishap), followed by brilliant execution of complex social, leadership, and performance skills matched only by the high degree of praise from adoring public.

Okay. Not quite like that. But almost. And typical of many of our days with Jessie as she moves to separate from us—one of the key tasks (along with independence, accountability, and responsibility) for anyone moving into adulthood.

This is how it goes (or went): Friday Jessie and I were both at home because it was a freezing rain danger day (too dangerous to get to work at the Food Bank for her). But we each had completely different agendas. I, practical Mom, thought she could get the pile of writing, laundry, accounting, and organization that had accumulated done, while I finished up a contract. Her plan was to google her day away, every now and then telling me what I needed to do, immediately, to help her achieve her goals—which included, but was not limited to, making sure she could move out by March, starting an inclusive post-secondary program, driving her to a friend’s house, and dropping whatever I might be working on to help her fix her computer and then shooing me away with nary a nod of thanks. If I didn’t respond immediately, she stood by me at my computer whinging away until I either gave in or snapped.

The trend continued well into the evening, where she even alienated Dan, who, usually very difficult to nudge over onto the dark side, intimated that she was acting like a [insert rude noun used for someone who is acting selfish, thoughtless, and insolent here]. She, of course, stomped up to her room, leaving her kitchen-cleaning duty undone, and vented her anger by trolling the internet until it was way past midnight, every now and then yelling (when she thought she heard footsteps on the stairs) LEAVE ME ALONE, and, I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY, and YOU CAN’T MAKE ME GO TO BED. Or, if she didn’t actually yell those things, she emitted some strange psychic energy force that was just as effective and conveyed the exact same meaning.

I, having been undone, went to bed and pulled the covers up over my head. It was no surprise that I found Dan cowering there too. We decided that the natural consequences—being tired for teaching in the morning, maybe even sleeping in and missing the drive to the class and missing teaching—would be much better than anything we could invent. But, I have to admit, I was mightily pissed that I had raised a daughter so careless of her charges (the children she was teaching in the morning) and her responsibilities (printing out the lesson plan, packing up so she would have everything she needed in the morning.) As well, I had invited a renowned blogger, leader, speaker, teacher, and advocate whom I admire (and who was in town for the day) to bring his young niece Ruby, to the class. So, I had a bit more invested than usual.

When we woke in the morning, I gave Dan strict instructions NOT to wake Jessie. It was up to her to get up and be ready to teach. She needed to take full charge of her life (or be hoisted by her own petard). Frankly, I was hoping for the hoisting option, as she rarely suffers consequences, somehow blessed randomly and frequently by the universe.

I was trumped again, as Jessie rose while I was meditating and got herself fed, dressed, and packed before I emerged from my basement lair. “Wow! Great job Jess!” I praised her, while raising my eyebrows at Dan and secretly cussing. Well, she was sure to be tired in class, and maybe then someone would speak to her about her performance, and maybe THEN she would learn that she needed to go to bed at a decent hour and every now and then LISTEN TO HER PARENTS.

Well, she did get spoken to about her performance, only it was a potful of praise generously piled on by Dave Hingsburger, who wanted to mention Jessie in his next blog about Ruby and the kids’ Propeller class. According to Dave, Jessie was welcoming, attentive, sensitive, and a great teacher. According to Ximena (one of the other teachers and a brilliant mentor to Jessie) she was full of energy and very focused; according to Liz (another teaching mentor and performer), she made great headway on the piece she is helping choreograph for the children’s show. So you see, I tried my best to find some gaps in her performance of her duties, but was bested by reality.

That, my dears, is a typical episode in our journey to independence. You’d think I might have discovered by now how to just let go and enjoy the ride, but I am a very slow learner, white knuckling my way along a path that I have very little immediate control over.

And that, I am beginning to learn, is how it is meant to be.

RETRO JESSIE: Best Laid Plans: The Jonas Brothers [November 2008]

We are negotiating these transition years with a great deal of angst, frustration, and—when we can step back and look at the bigger picture—laughter as our daughter Jessie’s drive for independence often leads us down what we (as her parents) feel are major detours or even crashes (of will). Of course, as parents our opinion is suspect at best.

Anyone who has been to our house knows that, while the house is a disaster, our plans for independence would rival the best book on the subject. We have checklists (for her morning routine, for the evening routine, for food, for homework, for breakfast). We have visual cues (for laundry, for making and packing lunch, for taking a shower). We even have clocks colour coded to support her telling time. What we don’t have is any degree of ‘buy-in’ from Jessie, or what we as parents would label ‘success.’

Our biggest challenge these days is getting Jessie to plan. Plan her day, plan her goals, plan her homework, plan her precious time with friends, plan getting out the door on time so she doesn’t miss the bus. We have backed off on rescuing her (we no longer drive her to school when she is late, remind her when her homework is due, gather her dance clothes and costumes together, or make her check her email) and then have to lock ourselves in the basement to stop ourselves from intervening to make it all work out.

Somehow, she does not quite grasp that telling me that she needs hawk wings for a performance that is in 2 hours is not a terribly effective plan. She looks at me first in desperation, then in anger. What kind of a mother am I, that I can’t make hawk wings in a ten-minute time frame. “But, I’ve made a commitment!” she wails (oh yes, she has the language down, just can’t make the connection to HER role in it all).

Then yesterday she came home from school very excited about . . . yet another scheme. Jessie always has lots of schemes ... for creating a choir, making a movie, writing a documentary, going on the road with Miley Cyrus, living in New York with her best friend, buying our local rundown movie theatre—the Mayfair, stopping all injustice in the world, being the most popular girl on the planet ... and the list goes on. Great, I say. What’s the plan?

And low and behold she had one! A very detailed plan! That started with a rough copy of a letter she wrote to the Jonas Brothers (I refrained from asking WHICH class she wrote this in. I don’t want to know, and if I ask then, as a parent I will have to say, again, you need to be paying attention in class to what is going on IN class! Which I am tired of saying and I am sure she is tired of hearing and which really makes no difference. Ah yes, the humbling experience of parenting a teen—when we are faced with our utter powerlessness, which I have heard is supposed to lead to a spiritual awakening but has only really sent me into expensive therapy.)

I do have to share the letter with you, because she said I could and because, when I ignore the fact that it is to the Jonas Brothers, it actually demonstrates a certain degree of skill in its structure and its argument. It goes like this:

ROUGH COPY
TO: Jonas Brothers.
Please
Respond
Politely !!!!!!!! (yes, 8 exclamation points)

Jonas Brothers,
My name is Jessie Huggett and I write lyrics and I was wondering if we could get together so I can show you my lyrics and you guys can help me with the music and the beat and the tempo and everything. And maybe I could come on the tours to be your lyricist? I know Nick is the songwriter, but have you tried to get a lyricist to write the songs for you?

This will be like a huge opportunity that you cannot miss out on. Please. Pretty please. With whipped cream on top.

It will be great opportunity for me as well, because when I grow up I want to be a Hollywood lyricist. That is my dream.

I also have a laptop. I can type. Plus I have a printer. If you guys let me go with you on tours, I can type the lyrics out and I can print them out and you guys can have the printed copies.

Thank you so much,
Jessie Huggett

Now, the letter is pretty good, but the piece de résistance is the plan. All neatly written out and the key to the whole scheme.

Here’s my plan (writes Jessie)

Step 1: Make Letter.
Step 2: Type out the letter.
Step 3: Ask Mom to print it out.
Step 4: Get stamps.
Step 5: Address the letter.
Step 6: Mail the Letter.
Step 7: Wait until they respond.
Step 8: Receive the responded letter and read it.
Step 9: When they say yes, say “Oh Yeah” very loud.

“Oh yeah!” very loud, is what I exclaimed when she shared her plan with me. All our hard work has paid off! Not in the way that we had planned (we still despair her ever getting out the door on time), but in the way that SHE has planned. And that’s the point isn’t it? When it comes to something truly meaningful and important to her, she can plan how to get there. Baby steps, baby steps. Both going forward (her) and backing off (us).