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.