Happy

The Boy is home from college.  This is as it should be, since the semester has ended and the holidays are upon us.

What isn’t as it should be?

He’s not going back.

He informed me of his decision just a few weeks ago.  “I’m not sure what my path is,” he told me, “but I’m sure this isn’t it.”

This isn’t it?

This path I’d worked my tail off for eighteen years to afford him - he was just going to meander off it after one semester?  Abandon my hopes and dreams for him?  Turn me into some statistic about how single mothers fail their kids?

Because it was all about me, right?

I told him I felt he was making a mistake, that he ought to just tough it out through the spring semester and see if he felt differently.  But I also silently owned up to the fact that this was opening old wounds for me, and I was going to have to work to keep from imposing my issues on him.

See, I never finished college.  The full story is one for a book.  The Reader’s Digest version is this: I was unhappy at one school, and when I found myself in a downward spiral of Girl, Interrupted proportions, I decided transferring to another school would be the answer to my problems.  Then I decided to defer my enrollment and work for a while.  One year became two, two became three.  I found myself married and pregnant and divorced (more or less in that order).  I chipped away at my degree over the years, but as a single mom working full time and attending night school, I had more than a few moments where I wanted to travel through time and throttle my eighteen-year-old self.

Which, I suppose, is why I wanted to throttle my kid when he dropped his bombshell.  I mean, didn’t he get it?  I thought of all the years I’d have given anything to go back to the days of having a dorm room and a work-study job and enviably few responsibilities.  Didn’t he understand how good he had it?  Couldn’t he learn from my mistakes?

Of course he couldn’t.  None of us ever does.

A few of my friends suggested that I tell The Boy he had to stay at school.  That coming home wasn’t an option.

Ha!

Have you met my kid?

Pretty much since conception, he’s upended my every plan.  My pregnancy (which I’d intended to spend quilting cute things for his nursery) was miserable, thanks to Hyperemesis Gravidarum - you know, the brutal 24-hour-a-day variety of “morning sickness” that everyone now cares about because Kate Middleton suffered it.  And those dreams I had of singing lullabies to a sweet, cooing infant or writing for hours while he napped?  Not a chance.  My baby was colicky for a full six months, which basically meant that he never slept more than two hours at a stretch, and when he was awake he was often screaming inconsolably.  I kept waiting for his little head to spin around like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist.  And though the colic ultimately passed, his defiance of norms became his defining trait throughout childhood and into adolescence.  ‘Strong-willed’ would be the kind term.

The funny thing, though?  Things have a way of working out for The Boy.  I’ve learned - time and time again - not to sweat his quirks.  He can be frustrating as hell, but he’s also smart and funny and has a better sense of self than anyone I’ve ever met.  And while there may have been times when I wished I’d made better choices when I was eighteen, this much I cannot ignore: the path I took brought this awesome kid into my life, and being his mom has given me more joy than I can quantify.  There’s a lesson in that.

As it turns out, The Boy has a fairly concrete plan for his schooling: spring semester at community college, then transferring to an in-state school for the fall.  He’s done the work to make the shift.  He seems happy.  Truly happy.

And I can’t think of anything I would rather have my son be.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

The Boy and I meet.  And yes, childbirth is exhausting and makes for bad hair.

My little buddy.  I think he’s humoring me.  Do you know how much I love to play in sand?

He hated that buzz cut.  I was not allowed to do that to him ever again.

We’ve got sweet dance moves.  Probably thanks to all those times we watched Napoleon Dynamite.

I am permitted only one selfie per road trip.  Even though he does stuff like shoving a cheeseburger into his face at the last second.

UnNaked

I had blue brie, crackers and hummus for dinner the other night.  It’s okay, though - I added some grapes to round out the leftover cocktail hour fare and make a meal of it.

Well, okay.

Fermented grapes.

Or, as the French might say, wine.

As some of my loyal readers have noted, I am no longer naked (read: alcohol-free).

My Naked in 2014 post explained some of my reasons for ditching the bottle as 2013 morphed into 2014.  I’ll try now to explain why I’ve picked it back up.  (And yes, one of the possibilities is simply that I’m a drunk and this is what we do.  But, hey - here goes…)

For starters, my Naked post wasn’t as naked as it could have been.  I had reasons for quitting that went beyond a desire to sift through past drinking-related behavior; namely the sudden downward spiral of my marriage and the way I was self-medicating with alcohol.  But that wasn’t stuff I was ready or able to discuss publicly just then.

If I’m entirely honest, The Ex and I got - and for seven years, stayed - together at least in part because we drank together.  And let me tell you, we were awesome drinking buddies!  It was the secret to our success.  We were a case of opposites attracting, but after a few drinks, who cares how whomever voted in the last election?  Who cares about bills or housekeeping or in-laws or any of the other baloney that comes to light in marital arguments?  Have a drink!  Have great sex!  Have…

A midlife crisis?

As 2013 wound down, it became clear to me that I had some big, tough decisions to make.  And that making them while intoxicated would be a bad idea.

I sobered up and assembled a widely-varied team of professionals to help me sort out how my past had led to my present - and how it might yet impact my future.  There was stuff I needed to work on, so I did.

I still do.

Probably always will.

See, I get it.  None of us is ever “finished” with this life stuff.  It’s forever a work in progress.  I could very well be a delusional alcoholic who’s gone back to happy hours and champagne brunches because, well, I’m a delusional alcoholic.

I could be someone whose circumstances led to occasionally unhealthy use of booze to avoid reality.

I could also just be an ordinary person who sometimes behaves well, sometimes doesn’t.

Here’s the thing: I like cocktail hour.  I like hanging out with friends and feeling that buzz and being silly.  I like beer on the beach.  I like wine downtown.  I like drinks on a train or in the rain, on a boat or with a goat, or with just about anything but green eggs and ham.  I like sometimes being a consumer of Chardonnay in unladylike quantities…and sometimes being the girl who sips tea while working on a manuscript.

What I don’t like is drinking to avoid talking or feeling or being real with the people in my life.  And I think I’ve put the brakes on that.  Full stop.  I am focusing on the honest, genuine, good stuff from here on out.

Naked or otherwise, I just want to be happy.

And, yes - have cheese and crackers and (fermented) grapes for dinner now and again.

www.kcwilder50ways.com