All Grown Up and Taking on the World

Back in April, I wrote about how the kid was taking on her first conventional job, after years of dabbling in creative and freelance industries. I wasn't sure what to expect, and was a little surprised when she liked the job and seemed to have no difficulty showing up on someone else's schedule. That came as a big relief to the woman who had joyfully given her a life without clocks or calendars, but sometimes worried about how she'd adapt if she ever had to punch a time clock.

The answer was "without a hitch."

For the first couple of months.

Then, one day, it emerged that the new cashiers were being paid more than the experienced cashiers who were training them. One or more of the experienced cashiers objected. Tori had nothing to do with those conversations. However, when the assistant manager went around telling people they could be fired for discussing their wages and all of the other cashiers nodded and promised not to do it anymore, Tori said, "I think that's illegal."

Then, she looked into it.

Then, she told the other cashiers that the National Labor Relations Act said they couldn't be prohibited from talking about their wages.

Then, she brought in a printout to show them.

Then, she got fired. Or invited to quit, depending on who you ask.

I'm not going to go into detail about everything that unfolded that 4th of July weekend, though it was comical enough to have been a parody YouTube video or a "what not to do" instructional for managers. (If you know me personally, ask about this, especially if you're in the legal profession. It's laugh out loud funny.)

Suffice to say that Tori celebrated Independence Day by filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Both the gentleman who originally took her call and the lady to whom her case was assigned also laughed out loud.

If you're reading this blog, you probably know that in addition to a lot of smarts and talents and a very large heart, my kid has a fairly serious anxiety disorder. When she first contacted the NLRB, I explained what she could expect and asked whether she was sure she wanted to take it on. She said she thought she had to, because had what happened to her happened to any other employee in the store, they wouldn't have known it was wrong.

And then she just went ahead and did it. She made the call. She filed the paperwork. She went to Peoria and did a two-hour interview and signed an affidavit, and when the corporate human resources department reached out three different times with offers of reinstatement and back pay, she continued to insist that they advise the other employees that they'd been given incorrect information and had a right to talk about their wages.

Toasting the signing of the settlement agreement with
chocolate milk in our Big R beer cozies.

Ultimately, she prevailed. The NLRB required the company to post information about the violation and the employees' rights. The company agreed to pay Tori for the entire two months she'd been off work. They offered to reinstate her, and...she went back.

She is, as a friend of mine recently described it, conducting a seminar in not burning bridges. She went back expecting that it might not go well and ready to walk away. But, she gave it a chance and so far, it's working out. At least one of the experienced cashiers received an appropriate raise. The employees' rights are posted on the break room wall, along with a brief recitation of how Tori was reinstated with back pay and had never done anything wrong in the first place. And, everyone seems to be getting along just fine--not just "good behavior while they're watching" fine, but genuine working well together.

The first piece of this--the knowledge of the law and the confidence in what was right and the refusal to let it go--I know where that came from. But, this walking back through the door with an open mind and making it work thing? That's all her.

Heritage Festival - Reprise

Yesterday afternoon, after Tori got off the phone with her boyfriend. I asked her what her plans for the weekend were. She told me that she and her boyfriend were driving to Iowa today, but Friday evening she was planning to go to the Lincoln Highway Heritage Festival in our little downtown and "I thought maybe you'd go with me, because friendship."

I was still working, but I packed it up and went to the Heritage Festival.

Tori and her friend Megan at our first Heritage Festival

I believe we attended our first Heritage Festival in 2002.

It's a small town festival with about ten carnival rides, a lot of greasy food, three days of mediocre music, a car show, a sad little "beer garden" in the middle of the street and a Sunday morning parade.

We never miss it.

That first year, she and Megan thought they were wandering off and exploring,but our eyes were always on them and they never got more than 15 or 20 feet away.

Next year, they'll let her into the beer garden (if she wants to sit on plastic chairs in the middle of the street and drink cheap beer out of plastic cups).

Tori, Megan and Heather at the Heritage Festival in 2015.

Last year, when she wandered off with Megan and another friend (I didn't feel like I had to surreptitiously keep an eye on them this time), I may have wandered off to...um...sit in plastic chairs in the middle of the street and drink cheap beer with my lifelong friend, Todd.

It may have been kind of a lot of beer, though we also rode some rides and reconnected with Tori for a late dinner downtown as the festival was wrapping up.

Times change. Thus far, we've been fortunate enough to go mostly from one good time to another.

Okay, maybe things don't really change all that much from year to year...

Early this morning, she set off on the five hour drive to the Iowa State Fair with her boyfriend and I headed into town to wander the antique car show she was a little relieved to miss.

Now she's eating bad food on a different curb in a different state
with a different person. Is that what "all grown up" means?

One day soon, she'll be in New York or Seattle when the Heritage Festival rolls around, or busy with her friends or boyfriend that weekend, or just wondering what she ever saw in that dirty little street festival. Maybe I'll go to the Heritage Festival alone, the way I did in 2013 when she was out of town, or maybe I'll take her children. Maybe I'll be the one to have moved, finally finding my way to the ocean shore I've longed for all my life.

Maybe I'll have a moment of wistfulness, if I'm on the other side of the country. Maybe I'll take a picture from the top of the Ferris wheel and text it to her. Maybe for just a moment, she'll wish that she was eating bad food in a parking lot or waiting in line for the umbrella ride instead of whatever grown-up, glamorous, important thing she might be doing.

But maybe--I hope--we'll both smile, and someone will exclaim "I'm Superman!" and laugh or wonder aloud what might have happened to the carny we called Slash.

Role Reversal

Last night, I went to a non-profit meeting in a garage (long story for a different blog) and ended up staying out pretty late.

About 11:00, Tori texted me:

Hope you're having fun. I'm going to bed. I ordered pizza from Alfano's and left it on the table in case you want some. Love you.

She even used her own money.

I laughed softly while I heated up her left over pizza and thought about her leaving me dinner and going to bed because I was out late on a Friday night but she had to work early in the morning.

Tori Got a Job Today

As landmarks go, this one seems a little silly.

After all, Tori started working on and off in independent film at 9. She took over shipping and other administrative tasks for me at 12. She was an on-and-off production assistant at 15. She started freelance writing occasionally at 16 or 17. She's done copying and filing and data entry and mailings for my business and various of my clients and charities.

She had a small part in a movie starring Jeffrey Combs, which won multiple festival awards and showed up in our video store.

In short, she had more work experience before she was old enough to apply for a regular job than many people have in their mid-twenties.

But, she'd only filled out one job application in her life. She'd never been handed a schedule or punched a time clock or been issued a name tag or a brightly-colored vest (or, to hearken back to my most traumatic uniform-related memory, a red, yellow and blue polyester dairy maid outfit).

Then, about a week after she got her driver's license, she Got Serious about finding an "outside job". The whole experience was a lot like the driving test--once she decided to do it, she sat down and applied for a bunch of jobs, got a call from one of the four she applied to the first day, went on one interview and starts work next week.

Trading in "freelance writer" for "cashier" probably doesn't sound like the big step forward that it is, but this is a new horizon. And, it's a step toward "normal" and away from the open-ended way of life we've maintained since she was 13.

Boyfriend. Driver's license. Job.

I can only expect that "apartment" is going to be the next abrupt development.

Another Road Block Down (for real)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Tori's 100+ mile drive and first foray onto the Interstate, all of which took us one step closer to that long-overdue driver's license. That was the last of the actual driving milestones to pass and left nothing for her to do but show up and take the test.

She did that yesterday.

After more than two years of building up that test in her mind and then some problems with her paperwork when we arrived, the experience was a little unsettling for everyone. Then, an hour later...

And then, there are days like this...

No, there's no babysitting gig or nephew involved in this adventure. We just picked up that kite at Wal-Mart and took it out to fly.

A Pretty Young Woman on a City Street at Night

That's what I saw. I opened this picture and I saw a pretty young woman on a Chicago street late at night. It isn't as if I didn't recognize her or she looked different to me in any concrete way. But, I'd have sworn throughout her life--would still swear--that I've always seen her as an independent person and not just "my kid". And this...this isn't a picture of my kid. This is a picture of a young woman out in the city with her boyfriend and somehow, that looks different from 100 similar pictures I've taken of her or seen her friends share.

Has she changed that much recently? Is it because I didn't know she was in the city until she started sending me pictures? Because she's standing in front of a landmark she's never visited with me? Because it's night and it's a tavern she's standing in front of?

I have no idea.

But, when I opened this picture, I didn't see "my kid". I saw a pretty young woman on a city street at night. Somewhat to my surprise, that was a very cool experience.

Another Roadblock Down (almost)

One of the concrete reasons that Tori still lives with me is that she doesn't have her driver's license. The reasons for that are complex and interrelated, but being unable to drive is not among them. She's been driving with various licensed drivers for more than two years. She's quite comfortable behind the wheel.

She hasn't taken her driver's test, though, and she'd never driven on the interstate.

Today, after driving 80 miles out on country highways just because the weather was beautiful, she turned onto I-88 and drove to DeKalb, got off the interstate, turned around and got back on.

She took it right in stride.

All Grown Up is Not a Thing

Yesterday was Tori's 20th birthday. There was a bit of confusion over it, due to what her boyfriend referred to on Facebook as our joint custody arrangement, and the end result was three straight days of birthday celebration and enough junk food to kill the child.

I expected that she'd be doing something with Brad on her actual birthday (Friday), so I invited them over for dinner on Thursday and baked her a cake. Brad figured that she'd be doing something with me on her actual birthday, and so made the world's richest brownies (8 types of chocolate) for her on Wednesday.

Somewhere along the way, she cleared up her plans: she and I were going to Chipotle on her actual birthday, as we have every year since she was 12.

On her 12th birthday, Chipotle was pretty new (at least to us) and she'd only been there a couple of times. That was back in the day when they gave you four soft tacos in an order, and at 85 pounds or so she scarfed them all right down, saying, "I just love this taco so much!" So, when I offered her the chance to go anywhere she wanted for her birthday, she picked Chipotle.

Not what I was expecting, but we went to Chipotle.

It so happened that her 12th birthday was a pretty exciting one, because I'd spent a then-outrageous amount of money buying her tickets to see the Jonas Brothers. We had a pretty amazing time at the Batavia Chipotle that night, and her reaction made the money well worthwhile.

So, last night, for the 9th "actual birthday" in a row, we headed out to Chipotle. She'd already had birthday brownies and a birthday cake, but I brought these cupcakes anyway, because these are the same cupcakes I brought along on her 12th birthday, since she'd chosen a place that wouldn't serve her birthday cake.

I'll be honest--they taste about like they look. But, neither that nor the constant parade of home-baked goods stopped Tori and her friend Anai from eating six of them during the night.

Anai showed up unexpectedly; we were getting ready to head out to Chipotle when Tori learned in a Facebook message that she was in town from Chicago.

Tori and Anai have been friends since kindergarten, and they're "birthday buddies," having been born on consecutive days, 16.5 hours apart.

Here they are at 6 at the library sleep over, and at 15 at Homecoming.

And last night, at Chipotle.

Tori wanted to go to the Chipotle on the far end of DeKalb rather than the one on campus, because it wouldn't be so loud and chaotic. I hope no one else chose that way.

The bottom line, I guess, is that life and relationships don't necessarily change all that much, despite the big structural changes that might be occurring underneath. I'm sure I'll forget that many times in the months ahead, but that's where I am today.

It's Always a Surprise

If you're a Gilmore Girls fan (and made it to the end--if you haven't yet, you probably want to stop reading here), you know that Rory and Lorelei got robbed twice. First, they had a wonderful week planned leading up to Rory's departure for Yale, only to discover that she'd had the check-in date wrong and had to be there the next morning. No time to say goodbye. Or, rather, ONLY time to say goodbye, and no time to drink in just a little more of that phase of the life they shared.

Then, after Rory's college graduation, they had a summer of road-tripping to roller coasters planned, but the job opportunity of a lifetime fell into Rory's lap...starting immediately.

I truly did feel like they'd been robbed on both of those occasions. They wrenched, for me and for my beautiful daughter, who has been known to glare accusingly at me and say, "Stop leaving!" when Lorelei drops her daughter off at college.

But, I also thought that it was pretty realistic. While those clear-cut and abrupt changes in direction might have been created for television, real-life change sneaks up on you, too. Sometimes, you don't know something is ending until it's over. Most of the time, there's no clear end point at all.

I think that's more true with parents and children than in any other context. A child isn't grown up o his 18th birthday or when he graduates from high school or when he graduates from college. He's a little different every day.

Joan Rivers said once, of her daughter, "Until she was 15, I didn't know where she started and I stopped." That's a little extreme, perhaps, and I couldn't put a clear date on it, because everything is an evolution. But, when you're a single mother of a single daughter, your life happens as a unit. Until it doesn't.

And usually, you see that change only in the rear view mirror.

There's no clear line here. In a day or two or a few, Tori will come home, and she'll be here for days or a week or...I don't know. And maybe we'll both be busy and we'll barely see each other, as has sometimes happened all along. Or maybe we'll have some down time and hang out and talk about the craziest things at a mile a minute, shifting from one topic to another so fast that you'd be glad you weren't in the room. Or maybe we'll take a day or two and drive the way we used to. And then she'll leave again, and then she'll come back again, and one day she won't.

Many years ago, my beautifully insightful friend Barb Cooper wrote a column about how she wished that she'd known it was the last time, the last time she'd picked her daughter up. I said then, and I believe now, that it's better not to know--that it's better to have the moment untainted by that sense of loss and nostalgia and the need to hold on just a little too tightly.

I wholeheartedly believe that, and I try not to speculate. But Christmas was haunted by my near-certainty that it would be her last one in my house, and I'm sure it won't be the last moment in which I involuntarily wonder.

The Joys of Frozen Food

I know what you're thinking. With that title, I've probably planted a sad image in your mind of an old lady suddenly cooking for one and just opting for the modern equivalent of a TV dinner rather than bothering.

That's all wrong.

I mean, I'm not even 50.

And, I've frankly never been averse to making a meal of Amy's vegetarian enchiladas.

But, the frozen food isn't for me.

It's the only solution I've been able to come up with for having an intermittent child. When Tori visited her father, I had a clear timetable. Sure, sometimes she'd ask to stay a little longer or something would come up and I'd have to pick her up a day early, but for the most part I knew whether she was living with me or not at any given time.

That allowed me some luxuries that I never realized were luxuries, like buying produce.

For various reasons (I have medical considerations, she's an on-and-off vegetarian), Tori and I evolved toward eating mostly different things some time ago. There are times, of course, when we have dinner together, or when we decide together to throw aside all the rules and eat something crazy that's not made out of food in place of dinner. For the most part, though, there's her food and my food.

So earlier this week, I went to the grocery store and found myself sort of standing in the middle of an aisle, rethinking everything.

She'd been gone for days. I didn't know when she was coming home. Should I just buy my food?

That definitely seemed wrong. She technically still lives with me. Much of the time, she actually still lives with me. Her bedroom and most of her things and her dog are here. It's her home. Mostly. Kind of.

So, definitely she should have food here. She should be able to open the refrigerator and take out something to eat, just like she's done all her life, right?

Yes.

I mean, I know I'm not technically obligated to feed her. Having informed me at four that I had to feed my kid every day because it was a law, she updated me when she turned 17--apparently, that's where the obligation ends.

Still, I want to feed her.

But, the thing is, we're not big on preservatives in my house. Though we don't always eat the same things, we've been pretty much in agreement for a few years that we should try to stick to food that's made out of food.

You know, the kind that you have to buy fresh.

Fish. Organic chicken breasts. Produce. Stuff you can't really stock up on in case, unless you're willing to toss a lot uneaten.

In this moment of deep confusion and uncertainty, I've turned to Amy's, and Morningstar. The next time the child comes home, she'll be constructing her meals entirely from frozen vegetarian chicken patties, Grillers, crumbles, and canned organic olives.

There's a better way, right? If you've found it, please share.

The Boundaries are Fuzzy

I don't mean the boundaries about what's appropriate, what questions to ask, who can say what, etc. 

We've never had that problem.

 In fact, years ago when my much younger sister earnestly told Tori that she should know that she could come to her when there were things she couldn't talk to me about, Tori came to me questioning what sort of thing that might be and why.

No, the lack of clarity here is much more fundamental.

Can You Be a Gilmore Girl in the Singular?

I didn't deem myself a Gilmore Girl. Years before I'd ever seen the show, people were telling me that my daughter and I reminded them of the Gilmore Girls. Even so, I was shocked when I watched my first episode, just three or four years ago. I may have checked my house for bugs and hidden cameras.

See, I'd always thought it was just the basics that made people say that--I was the single parent of a teenage girl. We got along and were basically partners in life. We both had long, brown hair, but hers was a little lighter than mine.

It wasn't that.

In part, it was the open lines of communication and the intelligence and the deep friendship that layered perfectly with the mother-daughter relationship.

But still, there was more.

Mostly, the constant, unrelenting humor and inside jokes and reference-based conversation. And the fact that when an online friend asked me whether we talked fast like the real Gilmore Girls, I was surprised to learn that they talked fast.

Maybe most of all--though I didn't recognize it at the time--it was Lorelei's constant, certain drive to empower her daughter to be the separate person she was meant to be, even though the inevitable result of that was beyond her imagination.

Sure, Tori and I made jokes about how when she moved out I'd have to subscribe to the magazine she usually read most of out loud to me on the day it arrived, and how we'd adopt the Post-It note system that the Gilmores employed during that awful time when they didn't speak for months.

But, the day-to-day stuff...there's no telling in advance what that looks like.

My daughter is turning twenty on Friday. She hasn't moved out, but she spends a lot of time at her boyfriend's house. As I write this, I haven't seen her in five days. The flexible life we've always lived together--I homeschooled her, and we both freelance--gives her the flexibility to go visiting whenever she likes, for as long as she likes...just like the way we traveled together throughout her teens.

Can I tell you a secret?

I love when she's gone. Absolutely love the formless days and nights and the quiet whenever I choose it. I get more work done, and my living room is cleaner. I'm an immersion writer, so that uninterrupted alone time really allows me to thrive, creatively and professionally.

She knows this, and it doesn't hurt her feelings. She gets me. She loves me a lot, and she enjoys hanging out with me, and she doesn't miss me when she's doing something else.

And then I get up to pour a cup of coffee and it suddenly hits me that maybe those days of running out to get her an iced mocha before she wakes up in the morning are truly gone forever. Maybe I'll never again see that sleepy little smile and hear her murmur sincerely, "I'm loved," because I knew she'd need coffee this morning and went out in the cold to get it.

And I feel like someone's kicked me in the stomach.

Change is an everyday part of raising a child, and I've long said that each new stage is in its own way as good as the one before. Though a part of me misses the tiny toddler on my hip, the shiny-faced kindergartner, the budding adolescent, I can't wish back any of those days...because I wouldn't have missed the ones that came after for the world.

I suspect that will be true of what's on the horizon as well. I suspect that I will be as unreservedly happy to see my baby moving into her first apartment as I was the first day she didn't look back before walking through the doors to school.

I'm pretty sure.

But, I don't know what it looks like. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that, so I thought I'd share the journey.