A Day Too Complex to Title

I started out with "It's been an exciting day," and it has.

At noon, Tori lived with me. By close of business, she had keys to her new apartment, utilities connected, and she'd moved her car half a block down to sit outside her own door. 

She was pretty excited.

I actually can't remember the last time I saw her this happy.

And, the place is darling. Great windows. Vanity area in the bathroom that I'd kill for. Plenty of closet space. And, most important, room on both sides to plant flowers. 

So, the exciting day angle made sense.

But then, I was tempted to go with "Transitions."

They just signed the lease this afternoon, so of course they don't have much (read: anything) in the place. 

Of course, they decided to stay there anyway. I got it. 

I also remembered sleeping on the wood floor of a house in Indianapolis on New Year's Eve when my then-fiance and I first moved back in together after working in separate cities for two years, so I loaned them my air mattress.

Then, near 11 p.m., the door burst open. I was getting ready to go to bed, and it was raining so hard the dogs had refused to go out. Tori was soaked from stepping into a deep puddle as she ran through the courtyard and wearing her boyfriend's oversized sweatshirt. She dashed upstairs to get some clothes and her toothbrush and asked me to get her a few things from the kitchen.

Like cereal. And milk. And paper plates. And a couple of glasses. And bowls. And her iced mocha. And a couple of forks and spoons. Oh, and some pillow cases. I threw in a rag, some dish soap, some paper towels, and a small bag of ice for her coffee in the morning.

Sometimes, even abrupt change isn't all that abrupt.

The Last Moment

It's been two years since I last posted here--two years in which things changed and changed again and the ups and downs involved weren't my story to share (though my story was shaped by them).

As it is inclined to do, the sun slowly rose again, life moved forward, and gathered momentum. And now, both suddenly and not, Tori is getting the keys to her own apartment tomorrow.

If you've read this blog, or my personal blog, you know that watching her crest new hills is one of my favorite things. She was nervous and excited as she filled out the application and gave it to me to double-check (though she really didn't need any help). She waited for five days and then shouted from upstairs that she'd gotten the apartment, appearing in the living room seconds later to ask me to go with her to buy a money order for the deposit. Then, when she had the money order in hand, she dropped me off at home before she went to make the payment, 'cause she's a grownup.

She was happy and confident and fairly wiggling with excitement and it was infectious. Sure, those little things were nagging in the back of my mind, how I'd never again be downstairs working or cleaning or playing with the dogs and hear her start playing her guitar upstairs, or belting out a song from Wicked or Into the Woods. Sure, there have been flashes when she ran down the stairs to show me a new nail design or share a bit of celebrity news and it crossed my mind that those days would be over in a matter of weeks, then days.

But, there's nothing better than watching your child in her own element, stretching her wings, reaching for what she wants and pulling it down from the sky.

Plus, we're getting the best of both worlds--a sort of cheat that most people facing an empty nest don't get (and the reason I'm still blogging on this "sporadically occupied" site): she's moving into an apartment on my block. She'll have her own space, decor, privacy, bills, and autonomy but, to the degree we choose (read: she chooses) we can still walk the dogs together, make coffee runs together...hell, if the new nail design is exciting enough, she can run across the lawn to show it to me instead of down the stairs. We can still shop for flowers and plant our gardens together.

These things will happen less often, of course. It will have to be a conscious choice, when one of us is walking a dog, to text the other or knock on the door and say, "Do you want to come along?" rather than a question we ask automatically as one of us gets up to take them. That won't always happen. It will likely taper off over time. But the transition will be more gradual, more natural, than if she were moving out of state, or even across town. And, we'll always have the option. That "last chance" feeling of the final days of summer vacation doesn't apply.

When we want to go ice skating together mid-day, we can meet in the driveway and ride together as easily as ever. When we want to work on a children's book or promoting her business or she's doing a project for me, one or the other of us can make the commute in 60 seconds. Possibly in our pajamas.

In short, it's all good. Really, truly. I think when I'm walking the dogs and see her new apartment, I'm as excited as she is. I know that the day I look out the window and catch a glimpse of her in her own life, tending her garden or reading in her yard or playing with her dog, it will fill me with a joy I've only ever known when I saw her shining and happy in her element.

And then, this afternoon--almost exactly 24 hours before she's to pick up her keys--I walked up the stairs and saw this:

And suddenly it hit me that this was the last of the thousands of times I've come upon my baby sleeping in my house, the last time I'd see her at rest in her room in the space I found and maintained for her, on furniture I bought her, among things she'd accumulated in our lives together. My heart broke wide open as a cascade of images flashed through my mind at lightning speed: her sleeping face as a toddler in my bed; looking in on her at night in elementary school, when she was so small that she still slept in a toddler bed and her hair nearly reached her elbows; looking over at her sleeping in the car on long cross-country drives; touching her head gently when she was sick and sleeping during the day; peeking into her room in the morning to see whether she was awake yet.

For a moment, it seemed as if everything important in the world was changing. I slipped back downstairs to grab my phone and take her picture, the last time I'd stumble upon sleeping beauty in my house, and came back down with tears in my eyes.

20 minutes later, her boyfriend came in. She came down the stairs. They worked on her car. She came back in laughing. And nothing had changed at all.

I suspect this cycle will repeat many times in the days ahead.

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...