You Can't Make this Stuff Up

When I was in the throes of the agony and ecstasy of mothering three young children, I took lots of pictures, a few videos, kept meticulous baby book records (under the assumption that one of them will one day wonder how much he or she weighed at seven months) and wrote lots and lots of notes, stories and journals about our idyllic life. 

Lately, I’ve been going through files and papers and photos because I believe, in my heart, if not my head, that upon my demise, my kids will care about those files and photos and scribbles and stories. I think that if I catalog everything in the many Rubbermaid bins in which they have been dumped, that there’s a better chance it won’t all be trashed once I’m ashes in the wind. Ashes tossed in the backyard to save the cost of a columbarium. 

But, I also realize that I’ll be doing this until the day I die because while living through the chaos, I never had the two seconds it took to write a name and date on the back of a photo. And so I’m spending an inordinate amount of time trying to match faces with places and dears with years. And, rereading stories about raising children that I’d swear were tall tales if I didn’t have written proof. 

Many moons ago, I packed the kids up for a day trip to the beach, which in itself, amazes me. It must have been before my aversion to sand, or perhaps the cause of it. Here is how I documented the day:

After spending an hour getting ready, I tossed the last of the necessities into the minivan, slammed the trunk shut before things started rolling out and hollered, “Time to go!”

Fifteen minutes later – after everyone who swore they didn’t have to, peed, grabbed sickening sing-a-long CDs, ragged stuffed animals and miscellaneous must-have toys – we were off.

“Road trip!” we yelled in gleeful unison. All our trips started out that way. 

103 minutes, one bathroom stop, one NO FRENCH FRIES battle later, we pulled into the quaint beach town of Manasquan. There was no parking anywhere (what was I thinking?), so I pulled right up to the boardwalk and unloaded my bags of tricks. 

Chair, in case I got to sit. Hat, to set an example. Three more hats on the off chance they’d wear them. Sunscreen; spray for back and legs, cream for faces. Buckets, shovels, beach ball. Bug spray in case the green flies were out. Diaper, in case the little one had to do number two (afraid to sit on the toilet). Wipes, in case of the aforementioned. Another diaper, in case of diarrhea. More wipes. Extra t-shirts in case the first ones got wet. Water bottles, Teddy Grahams, saltines, in case of nausea. Money, in case I felt charitable. More money for beach tags. Extra shorts – three pairs. I’d suffer and drive home wet and sandy. Books, lots of books, in hopes of convincing the daughter to read to the boys while I perused my year-old People magazine. 

“Sit!” I commanded the seven-year-old daughter. 

“Stay!” I commanded the five-year-old.

“Come!” I commanded the three-year-old. 

And, yes, I did. I left my two older ones alone while I parked the car. Which took longer than I expected, mainly because I ended up carrying the three-year-old the entire nine blocks. Both ways. 

When we returned, there they were, happy as larks, sitting right where I had commanded. My heart surged.

“OK, guys, grab something!” I called cheerfully.

“I can’t!” whined the seven-year-old. 

“Me neither. I’m too tired,” parroted the five-year-old. 

“I’ll carry something,” the ever-ready-to-please three-year-old said sweetly.

But, like most three-year-olds, his sweetness was short-lived. Upon spying the snack bag, he began bellowing for a Teddy Graham.

“When we get to the beach,” I said. “It’s 20 feet away.” 

“NO! I want one NOW!”  And, then I lost him to a full-throttle temper tantrum. 

“FINE! Eat them all!” I snarled, thrusting the bag into his greedy little hands. 

“I don’t like this kind!” he roared. “I want the chocolate ones.”

“Too bad,”(you rotten stinkin’ brat) I answered. “Eat them or stop whining.”

“I want chocolate ones!” he screamed. I grabbed his arm. I applied pressure.

“STOP HURTING ME!”

I rolled my eyes, having played this game before. 

“Mommy!” he screeched. “You’re ALWAYS hurting me.”

More than a few eyes were on us at this point.  So, after smiling that mom-looking-for-empathy smile, and getting none, I picked him up like a sack of potatoes and dragged him across the boardwalk – feet kicking, arms flailing, nails sinking into my skin.

We settled into our spot, I set up my chair, pulled out the buckets and shovel and the five-year-old immediately announced he had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom on the boardwalk no one had to use. 

“Can you hold it? “ (until you get in the ocean),I begged.

“No. I have to go NOW!” 

So, I grabbed the now more reasonable three-year-old by the paw, signaled to the seven-year-old to follow without fighting, and off we trooped across the sand, five-year-old holding his wiener.

“Watch it!” a bronzed bathing beauty snapped as one, or all of us, scuffed sand onto her purple-striped beach towel. 

“Ah, take it easy,” I mumbled under my breath.

“I just had LASIK surgery and I can’t get sand in my eyes,” she yelled to our retreating bodies. 

“Then, you’re in the right place!” I said, physically unable to resist. 

“And you’re in the only place you can be with your bratty kids,” she taunted. 

Now, no one, other than me, bad-mouths my children. Especially not a twenty-something beach bimbo with a perfect body.

“Excuse me?” I said, pivoting in the sand.

“You heard me,” she said, burying her brain in her romance novel. “I wish you’d be more careful.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. 

Now, those who know me often marvel at what comes out of my mouth, but the truth is, it takes a lot for me to wage war, especially if toddlers are my only audience. But, it spewed out of me, nonetheless. 

“I wish for you twins,” I spat. ‘I wish for you stretch marks and big bags under your eyes. I wish for you a husband who cheats on you. I wish for you a job at the A&P that doesn’t pay you enough to cover day care. And, I wish your eye surgery had worked. If it had, maybe you'd be able to see the world a little more clearly!"

I  was oh, so proud of my ad-libbed proselytization. But, not half as proud as I was of my three-year-old, whose hand I had dropped in the heat of the moment. 

“Mommy,” he said. “I tinkled on her beach bag.”

Nope, you can’t make this stuff up. 

Pure Bliss: Another Fun-Filled Trip

“So, what islands are you stopping at this time?” my ever-loving spouse asked a day or two before I was flying to Florida for my annual cruise.

“Uh, uh, I’ll print the itinerary out for you. We’re on NCL’s brand-new ship – the Bliss,” I offered.

“You don’t know where you’re going?” he asked, somewhat incredulously. Somewhat. Not completely. 

“St. Thomas. Tortola. Nassau,” I spewed after stealing a glance at the papers on my desk. 

He shook his head and thanked his lucky stars that he could stay home and walk the dog in the snow.

Ten years ago, we went on a family cruise. It was his first and my fifth. Everything I love about a cruise, he hates. I love overeating. I love overdrinking. And I love being held captive with 4,000 imperfect strangers for a week. 

After that fateful cruise, my spouse agreed that we’d both be happier if I overindulged with my bosom buddy from high school rather than with him. Which is what Patty and I have been doing ever since. 

Patty cares less about where we’re going than I do. We’ve been to so many of the Caribbean cruise destinations so many times, done so many snorkeling trips, bought so many pairs of “one-of-a-kind” earrings and sipped so many umbrella drinks in so many beach bars that all the islands begin to blend together. 

But, people on the other hand, never do.

I often marvel at the serendipitous situations that randomly pop people into my life – especially when I’m traveling. I look around the cabin of the airplane, squeeze my thighs tight in deference to my inch-away seatmate and assess the arbitrary combinations of humans who are all going to the same place on the same day at the same time. Knowing there’s a good chance the plane will go down, I spend my final living hours making up obituaries, assigning passengers occupations, families and Purple Hearts. And then, because there’s a better chance that we’ll land safely, I give them dreams, destinations and broken hearts. 

As we boarded the Bliss and caught first glimpses of our coincidental cruisers in their unisex right-out-of-the-suitcase Bermuda shorts and loudly-flowered expandable tops or identical Here We Go Again! T-shirts, orange on day one, green on day two, a thought came to me.

What if pre-cruise we filled out a form that helped pair us up with people of common beliefs, quirks and vocations? Simply check a box for carnivore or vegan; daiquiri or beer; sun or shade; excursion or exploration. Then, perhaps a profile of who we are and why we cruise.

It would be a game-changer, for sure. 

Arguably, we’d never be matched up with the likes of Frank and Michelle, Air Force-trained, early-risers who engaged in Apple watch competition. 

The morning after the crash; the crash that was graciously accepted as imbalance rather than impropriety, Frank held up his wrist. 

“Forty-four flights,” he boasted. 

“Of beer?” I asked, having not yet conquered one single set of stairs. 

Meanwhile, Michelle, after going up and down and up and down and up and down the water slide nine times, sat alone in the dining room sneaking in yet another email with her ultra-important, awe-inspiring job back home. 

Certainly Catherine, an accountant, who, in a good way, didn't fit my mental mold of a number cruncher, would never have suspected we'd have a common kinship for Italian green-leather purses and special needs children. 

Had we not witnessed, and subsequently commented on Haydar’s first-day pseudo-concussion, would it ever have led to late-night talks about books and art and gulp, political agendas? Would we ever have learned to love Lucas and Valerie and steal Happy Birthday signs from their cabin door?

I’m not sure Carol Ann and her husband Puffy, a pro golfer who spent a day in the infirmary on an IV after too much vomiting (food, not alcohol) would have checked our box. Yet, our conversations were always full of candid content and easy camaraderie. 

And then, there was Amy who wore an “I love my Hubby” T-shirt. Imagine the stories we concocted from that, though the truth came as no surprise once we started talking Kindles and kids. She really did love her husband, Keith, with whom she was traveling, despite raising eight children. And she was equally surprised that a woman twenty years her senior was once a cool mom herself. 

A self-professed engineering nerd, Kevin, rooming with the adorable doctor in physical therapy, Renee, boomed hellos and warm greetings. He hated fish, loved cocktails and engaged in underwater motor scootering. Only one out of the three remotely resonated with me. And then we met his parents, Joyce and Mike, and all was forgiven. 

We probably wouldn’t have been matched up to vacation with the lovely 20 year-old Abby and her six-month old daughter who were in the midst of an ugly custody battle. Nor with the family with six (at least) children who ate six (at least) meals a day and spent six (at least) hours a day in the hot tub. And we pretty definitely would have passed on the orthopedic surgeon from West Virginia who declared there were too many Democrats in his home town of Asheville, North Carolina. We likely wouldn’t have had much interest in the snow-white haired grandmother reading Nora Roberts and Lisa Scottoline novels, her ten-year-old grandson barreling through Diary of a Wimpy Kid at a rampant rate. And I'm sure Sara-with-no-h, and her entourage of mismatched and mis-aged traveling companions would never in a million years imagine they'd find common ground with un-tattooed, conventional (in their world) women like ourselves.  

I chuckled myself to sleep wondering if given the choice, anyone would anyone sign up to cruise with two upper middle-aged (lower old-aged?) women who choose vacationing with each other over their significant others. Whether there’s any appeal to cruising with a retired educator, an aspiring novelist (give up that dream, honey!). With one who (on a cruise!) slurps a mere cup of soup a meal, the other four pieces of bread, filet mignon, risotto and chocolate cake. Same 10,000 calories every single dinner. One so soft-spoken you have to lean in close, the other boisterous enough to hear bow to stern. One who brought home every towel and napkin animal the room stewards left on her bed, the other who pocketed petite spoons from the dining room to stir hummus at home. 

And really, would anyone choose to cruise with someone who recycled stories instead of plastic straws?

But therein lies the beauty of a Blissful cruise. The random pairing of people whose paths would never cross on dry land. Who wouldn’t ever even begin the conversation that ends with the realization that it's not what we are but who we are that makes us worth befriending.  

Even if that realization is diluted, enhanced or antagonized by a little too much bourbon. 

Thanks, friends, for another fun trip.

Finding Joy in the Junk of Life

I  have recently KonMari’d my desk. In case you don’t know what that means, believe me, you will. A  woman named Marie Kondo has been entering homes by the zillions and changing lives one Tidying Up episode at a time. 

“Keep only what sparks joy,” she says. “Keep only the things that speak to your heart.”

Well, that’s a problem. Because, just about everything speaks to my heart. 

For weeks I have been dedicating one hour a day to decluttering my desk. I work in 15-minute intervals, timed with the timer on my new Apple watch; a techno-gadget that sparks complete and utter joy. This desk I am decluttering is the desk from which I work, perched with pen at the front window with a clear view of the Amazon truck delivering consumer essentials to the neighborhood, the dog walker arriving like clockwork for Jesse's daily stroll, Kerri pulling in and out of the driveway in her electric car, zipping to and from the dance classes she teaches and the woodpecker pecking holes in my beloved dogwood tree. 

Despite those simple joys, my desk had also become a growing source of agitation and angst. This is the desk that houses ten thousand memories within its four cavernous drawers. The desk that has overflown into a built-in bookshelf, a make-shift storage ledge and a rolling file cabinet containing scraps of paper with conversations I’ve overheard, snippets for story ideas, crumpled eulogies, birthday cards from people past, personalized poems, radio commercials from CNBC, essays from CafeMom.com and ad copy from energy, travel, semiconductor and liquor distribution companies. 

There’s the requisite insurance policies from 2002, tax returns from the turn of the century, instruction manuals from three toaster ovens ago (who doesn’t know how to operate a toaster oven?), paint swatches from our first house (you know, in case I want to replicate the orange basement), work orders from The Grout Man (now extinct or dead), the contractor who may or may not have been responsible for our attic fire the week after we moved into our house and the bills for our fallen backyard fence, Roto-Rooter rip-offs and last 30 oil changes. 

The notebooks. Oh, the notebooks. I have notebooks filled with scribbles from baseball bleachers, Project Graduation plans, church meeting doodles, surgery documentations, short stories, middle pages of masterpiece manuscripts, babies’ first words, names and notes of cruise friends so we remember in the morning (Linda & John-Michigan, BFFs, 6 grandchildren and counting; Jamie/Stuart, escaped Mormons; Matthew and Michael, pre-dinner cocktails, cute kid Jacob...); itineraries and tales from Russia in 1985, Paris, 1985 (big travel year), Hong Kong and Manilla, 1986, New Orleans, 1991 and the one I know exists but have not yet unearthed, the Trailways Bus trip across the country in 1979. 

And then, we've got the diaries. 

The first one begins on the first day of my junior year in high school with this dramatic warning scribbled on the front page: 

If anyone ever finds this diary, I’d advise you not to read it unless you want to get hurt or upset…If I die, I’d like Emily to read through and decide what should or should not be read by others. 

  

That diary documents many, many of my firsts, lasts and alwayses. It is wrought with emotion and drama and heartache and fun. Always, always fun. I scream for love and acceptance. I search for adventure and the meaning of life. And, I want a boyfriend more than anything else in the world, with the possible exception of becoming Nadine Maher's best friend. 

I write about my never-ending battles with the dearly departed Karen Shea and my ever-entertaining shenanigans with Margaret. I document the “best night of my life” with Patty, Madge, Rachel and Debbie, cutting school for the Flyers’ victory parade, stealing aforementioned Karen Shea's father's car, working at Yum Yum, the ice cream store my father bought so his daughters would have a job, Phillies’ games, Ocean City overnights and concerts. So many, many concerts. All written under the umbrella of how everything, everything would be different if only I were thin. (Oh, how warped that teenage self-image!) 

My high school diary ends almost two years to the day after it began on the eve of leaving for college:

Well, thanks for listening these years and for watching me go through all that I have. Maybe I’ll write again, but somehow I kind of doubt it.

And then, came the 1984-86 diary. I’ve survived college. I’ve moved into an apartment with my sister, Nancy. I’m half-way through my tenure at TV Guide, a dead-end job I can’t bear to leave because of my fear of change, lack of confidence and the overwhelming notion that I’ll lose my friends if I move on. (All the good ones are still in my life. As a matter of fact, I ended up marrying one of them.)

Therein lie the stories of our massive $55 bar bill on the cruise with Nancy (at those prices, thank goodness they have drink packages now!), Margaret’s wedding, Emily breaking her ankle on the beach at Club Med as she hurried along “trying not to be romantic,” Carrie’s date, Buddy at the engagement party, losing weight, gaining weight and the many visits to DC to see Nancy, Eddie, Reg, Daphne and Tom. 

I didn’t yet know that my diary also contained snippets of my future spouse. Our mutual friend, Cherise, had not yet planted the seed, matchmaking us from friendship into marriage. I had no way of knowing what was to come and as “the only” person not in a relationship, with “no hope” of ever finding true love, I resorted to seeking affirmation from an assortment of inappropriate suitors. Don't worry, Mom. None were anything more than passing thoughts and fancies. 

There was Death. The one who sported nine tattoos, in a time when one tattoo was one too many. His bulging left bicep, ever present in his sleeveless undershirt, read Death Before Dishonor. There was Bill Brown, the married bartender at the Fly who every one of us had a crush on at one time or another. Skids, the story of whom I cannot tell bourbon-less, but when I do, suffice it to say it comes with heaving roars from the deepest depths of my belly. Dance Boy who scarred me for life after sidelining me mid-dance at the after-hours club, after stepping on, and possibly breaking, his big toe. And then there was Young who made my heart swoon. A good six years my junior, he’d stare me in the face, seven pony bottles of Rolling Rock lined up in front of him, and tell me how beautiful I was. 

There was the guy I thought I really, truly loved who is now in a relationship with a man. The guy I knew for sure was my soul mate who is undoubtedly still searching for that scrap of paper with my phone number on it. And the guy who swore he wasn’t married and later sent me a letter apologizing for lying. At least he kept the scrap of paper. 

I just hope that when I'm 60 years old, I wake up and can say going through all this was all worth it, I write, dramatically.  

The me I am today was built on the pain and insecurity of that 16 year-old, the hopes and heartbreaks of that 26 year-old and the spunky spirit that carried me through the ups and downs of life. 

And so, as joy is sparked as I declutter my desk and relive my adventures diary by diary, photo by photo, letter by letter, I realize I have gotten my younger self's wish. Every doubt, every dream, every fight, every friend, every sting, every smile was, indeed, worth it. 

But, I still wish I were thinner. 

Why I have Parental PTSD

“Mom!” the daughter exclaimed. “What are you watching NOW?”

While in the throes of child rearing, I never watched TV. I missed all the good ones:  Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, Will and Grace, Friends, The West Wing, Everybody Loves Raymond, Law and Order and The Sopranos. So, it’s no surprise that my family members are befuddled by the amount of TV watching I do now. I self-medicate for hours upon hours with the likes of How to Get Away With Murder, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Shameless,The Bachelor, the remake of Dynasty and A Million Little Things. 

“Daughter,” I responded. “I have Parental PTSD.”

Proof of the disorder is documented in a ten-and-a-half year-old email to my long-lost friend, Brenda, found while going through 27 years’ worth of papers over the weekend. 

Oh, Brenda!

My life is a whirlwind. I remember when the kids were 5, 3 and 1 and people would say, “You think this is tough – just wait till you get into the car pool years!”

Car pool years? What could possibly be easier? Buy a new mini-van, tune into Dr. Laura on the radio, toss the kids a few granola bars and tool around town, listening to stories of first loves and latest fights, relishing the freedom of not having to carry sappy cups, tie shoes or buckle kids in car seats. 

Now we’re at 16, 14 and 12 years old and this is my life: 

I leave my room at 7:50 am when the last door slams. I long ago learned that since my spouse and I have different senses of urgency (i.e. he thinks 12 minutes is more than enough time to get three kids up and out), it would be better for everyone to have just one parent do mornings. Since the spouse always works way beyond dinner time, it makes perfect sense for his kid bonding time to be before I wake up. I get my sleep. He gets the grief.

I start the day hobbling my way through a mile-long walk because that’s all I can muster with my two, yes, two, bad knees that are awaiting replacements. Then, I come home and get on the phone with my best friend and volunteer buddy, Claire, to see what we’re up against. If we’re not running the high school plant sale, or doing picture day at the middle school, I get on my computer and google hotels for our next baseball tournament in Rhode Island or Richmond, or somewhere in between. Once I’ve found a kid-friendly place with a bar, I start thinking about the AAU National BasketballTournament in Las Vegas and research flights for that. Frustrated by the cost, compounded by my lack of income, I move on to websites for an all-star cheerleading team that’s closer than 45 minutes away, in hopes of convincing the daughter that it’s up to her standards. I then look at the dog who I can’t stand and those eyes guilt me into walking him around the block. 

Now it’s lunch time and I pull out the yuppie greens, spritz 'em with raspberry vinaigrette and follow with a pound of chocolate to make up for the saved calories.

I defrost hamburger in the microwave and whip up a lasagna for dinner, because who doesn't love lasagna? I smile smugly knowing our newly-instituted three family dinners a week was actually going to happen. I head back to the computer for a few games of Snood, then then fiddle on freelancers.com and get depressed that another paycheck-less day has come and gone. 

At 3 pm I head off to the high school with the daughter’s softball gear. As her friends, who vary by the day, pile into the minivan, I smile, hand them water bottles and ask who is hooking up with whom. Despite the daughter’s “Moooom!”s, they always answer. I drop the girls at the field and swing around to pick up 6^th grade Leo and his entourage. I bring them home and they beg for money to go to the bagel store, Chinese restaurant or pizza parlor, all within walking distance of the house. 

I say, “Can’t you wait? I made lasagna.”

“We hate lasagna!” they chant in unison.

“Fine!” I bellow and toss a twenty at them with a resurgence of guilt about giving them the father’s hard-earned dollars for food. When there's plenty in the house. When I haven’t contributed to the family income in weeks.

At 4 pm, Max, the middle child (who flat out refuses a ride home from school in fear of having to answer anything as innocuous as “How was your day?”), saunters up the hill with iTouch earphones sewn to his head, plaid shorts slung low, Hollister eagle flying across his chest.

“Bagel?” is his greeting.

“No, lasagna tonight.”

“I hate lasagna. I’m going to the bagel store.” 

At which point, he charges to the garage to grab his brother’s way-too-small-for-him bicycle. Meanwhile, said brother and buddies are returning with their sesame chicken (and rice that ends up stuck to the table and the rug underneath), and starts screaming at Max for taking his bike. I see a middle finger flash as he disappears around the corner. 

I jump into the car, calling out to Leo and friends, “I’ll be back at 5 to take you to baseball. Be ready.”

Off I go to watch an hour of the daughter’s softball game. She sits the bench the entire time I’m there. I rush home, honk the horn, honk it again, curse and jump out of the car, forgetting about my aching knees until I hit the cement driveway. Doubly angry, I scream, “Leeeeeoooo!”

“Coming!”

“Now!”

“Just saving,” Friend Number One responds. If you don’t know this yet, saving means saving a score for Call of Duty 5 or Grand Theft Auto 6 or some other absolutely inappropriate X-box game. 

“I’m throwing that thing out,” I threaten for the ninetieth time this month.

Twelve minutes later, they appear, ready for baseball. Friend Number Two, not on the team, needs to be dropped across town and I mumble under my breath. Two minutes from the field, and five minutes late, Friend Number One announces he forgot his cleats. I say something to the tune of it they hadn’t been playing that !#@% game, he’d have realized he forgot his cleats. 

(Keep in mind that Friend Number One is here every single day and has heard much worse spew from my mouth.) So, back to Friend One’s house where his mother is getting home from work. I smile wistfully and wish I still worked in an office. She smiles knowingly and wishes she were home with the kids.  

Drop off complete, I rush back to the softball field where the daughter is pouting because I missed her hit in her single at bat. 

“I’m starving!” she announces. 

“Great. We’re having lasagna.”

“I hate lasagna”

“I hate you.”

I drop the daughter and yell to Max who has to go to basketball practice in Manhattan.  

“Hold on!” He knows better than to say, "Saving!’”

“Max! We’re late!”

He slams out of the house and into the car. “We have to pick up Jamal.”

“Jamal lives on the other side of town. I JUST dropped Anthony over there. You couldn’t have told me this half an hour ago?”

“I didn’t know.”

Cursing, I drive through town to pick up Jamal who has lost his phone so Max has to get out of the car, go to the door and ring the doorbell. No one answers. I honk the horn (like it does any good). Max shrugs his shoulders.

“Let’s GO!” I scream. “We still have to pick up Kris!”

“Hold on!” Max yells. “I hear him.”

Out comes smiling Jamal, 14 year-old muscles bulging beneath his basketball jersey. Off we go to pick up Kris (brother of Friend Number One whose house we had already been to. Twice.). 

Six minutes of waiting at Kris’s house and he pops in the car, earphones attached. After finally making the left turn onto the busy road at the corner, he announces he has forgotten his basketball sneakers. Again, note this is the brother of Friend Number One, who forgot his baseball cleats. I tell him to wear the sneakers he has on, but proceed to squeal the tires as I turn the car around. 

If you haven’t yet surmised, I am full of threats and no follow-through. 

Forty-five minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic and forty-five curses later, we pull up in front of the Riverside Church gym. 

“Goodbye you morons!” I call cheerfully as the boys bound out, fifteen minutes late for practice. I head back over the bridge to pick up the daughter for cheerleading practice.

The daughter is waiting on the porch. I have erased all bad karma from my soul as it is essential to do and say the right thing because if the daughter likes this new team, my thrice-weekly trips to a far, far away gym will cease and my life will change. 

We pull up to the new gym six minutes later and she melts down.

“I’m NOT going in there.”

“What do you mean, you’re not going in there? They are expecting you.” (A whole other story, but the long and short of it is, she’s one of those throw-up-in-the-air-and-hope-to-catch-them cheerleaders and we’ve had years of trauma and drama with different teams.)

“”This place sucks.”

“Stop saying that word. It makes me sick.” 

“Would you rather I say !#@%?”

“Just get out of the car and go in.”

“I’m not doing it. Look at this place. It’s disgusting. This team su..stinks.”

“You don’t know that.”

Arms folded over her chest. Lips pursed. I look at the clock.

“I have to go get Leo.”

“Of course. It’s always Leo. You’ll do anything for Leo.”

“Oh please!”

“You’ll pay any amount of money and drive him hours away for baseball.”

“Oh please!”

“You’re making me cheer at this disgusting place because you don’t want to drive me to Fairfield.” 

“Get out of the car.”

“No.”

“Get the !#@% out of the car!”

Slam. Screach. Peel out. 

I rush to the baseball field where I find the spouse hitting ground balls to the kids. 

“Yay! You can take the boys home. I have a football board meeting. Max is at basketball. Evil Coach Tony will bring him home. Molly’s at cheerleading. I’ll pick her up. Put the lasagna in the oven when you get home.”

I can only stay an hour at the meeting, 55 minutes of which is devoted to a fight between two parents. I leave to pick up the daughter, anticipating her reaction to the “gross” team.

I enter the gym. The daughter comes into the waiting room, giggling with another girl. 

“Can we give Christina a ride home?”

“Sure!” I answer kindly, wanting to make a good impression on new friends in hopes that it will mean she’ll stay with this team. “Where do you live?”

“North Bergen.”

“North Bergen,” I repeat. A 25-minute drive each way.

I ask the daughter how she liked it. She shrugs.

We return home at 9:53 pm. 

“Where’s Daddy?” I ask Leo, in front of the X-box again.

“Went to Barnes and Noble.” 

“Ugh. He knows we’re having family dinner.”

“No one wants family dinner!” all three children scream at once.

“Fine! But don’t blame me when you’re screwed up adults!” I screech. 

“Mom! I need a poster board for a project!” Max screeches back.

“When’s it due?”

“Tomorrow.” 

I run to CVS, arriving a nano-second before they lock the door, return home, scream at the kids to go to bed, put the lasagna in the freezer and grab the Chocolate Mint Chip Ice cream. I eat the whole half-gallon. 

I then open my emails and start typing to my long-lost friend, Brenda, a dissertation documenting my day and defining the life that has led to my Parental PTSD.  

The One Who Got Away

“I found you a husband,” I said to the daughter after spending a weekend with 400 handsome men, some of whom were even eligible bachelors. I was working at the Be the Best Baseball Coaches’ Convention, one of the highlights of my freelance career. 

“Great,” she responded without feigning even an iota of interest.

“He’s perfect.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“Daughter. He’s a baseball guy. You like athletes.”

The daughter checked out the pot warming on the stove and raised an eyebrow as if she no longer loved instant mashed potatoes.  

“He’s got a real job. He’s a pitching coach.”

“Nice,” she answered.

“For the MLB.”

“Whoo hoo!” 

“No, this one’s for real. He was a speaker at the convention and I listened to every single word he said. AND, I talked to him face-to-face. He’s down with this, daughter. You’ll have athletic kids with big hearts. He’s one of those guys who sees the value in everyone, whether you’re the star on the team or the guy lining the field.”

“Sweet.”

“Oh, and he lives in Scottsdale.”

“Perfect.”

And that was that. 

Jake was not the first, though arguably the finest, of the marital candidates I’ve proposed for my daughter. By virtue of age and experience, I am qualified to cut through the clutter, toss out the losers and home in on who is best equipped to win her heart. And a place at our Thanksgiving dinner table. 

Mike was a contender. Patty and I met him at the Pickled Onion in Bermuda. Easily on his fourth or fifth Dark n’ Stormy, Mike didn't skip a sip before befriending us when we sidled up to the bar. He was adorably witting, charmingly chivalrous and made us believe that he really, truly enjoyed talking to two women, fresh off a cruise ship, who were old enough to be his mother. 

Or mother-in-law. 

I pulled out my phone and showed him pictures of the daughter riding an elephant in Thailand, prancing the streets of Mardi Gras, waving her college diploma and hugging her little brothers for the last time ever, circa eight years old. 

He was smitten. I know he was. 

So smitten, in fact, that he immediately pulled out his phone and sent her a message explaining that he was with her mother, in a bar, in Bermuda, and she thought they’d be a perfect match. 

The daughter responded.

“Ha. Ha.”

To this day, I still talk about Mike. He was smart and fun and his sense of humor made me overlook his attire. The sunshine yellow Bermuda shorts, pale pink polo and unlaced Sperry's morphed before my eyes into Levi jeans, a Phillies' T-shirt and worn Nike sneakers. 

This fall, when I visited my favorite niece, Olivia, in Charleston, we spent a lot of time Bumbling. As endless faces of future husbands scrolled through her phone, I was mesmerized with the potential. The possibilities. The personalities. So fascinated was I that she gave me writer’s rights to those in the swipe right stable. 

“Really?!” I typed in full words, grammar intact, after Olivia explained that when Joe said, ‘Wanna hook up?’ he was actually asking for more than coffee. “This is how you go about looking for love?” 

Joe didn’t bother to respond with the obvious, “Who said anything about looking for love?”

“Here’s one!” I said, nearly falling off my bar stool, holding up a photo of a dimpled darling wearing a backwards baseball cap (that baseball thing again), frolicking with a Rhodesian Ridgeback on a rocky beach. “This is it.”

“Cute,” she agreed. “But he’s from California.” 

“So what?” I argued. “You can text. You can call. You can video chat. It’s not like you have to sit around waiting for a love letter to arrive in the mail."

And with that, she swiped him away.

“I just don’t get your problem with location,” I said. “I always had a long distance relationship. My favorite middle son moved to California for his girlfriend…”

“That’s different.” 

Yeah. It’s always different when it’s you. 

It’s not like I’m dying for either the daughter or Olivia to get married. They are young. They are smart. And they have years and years and more years of adventure ahead of them. Which, of course, is not to say, adventure ends with a ring. Some of my best adventures have been had as a married woman.

My matchmaking is mostly is self-serving. I’d love to finish the loop and give a toast at their wedding. I’d tell the tale of how I kissed so many toads (SO many), but because of true love and fate and believing that when you know you know, I eventually found my perfect sidekick. And what a great ending it would be if I could say, we’re here together simply because, thanks to my sage advice, you took that leap of faith on Jake or Mike or Joe or the Dimpled Darling. Think of the stories I could tell. The stories I could write. The blog I could rename.  

Old mother-in-laws die hard.

The last time our family was all together, conversation turned to the dating game as it always does after we’ve exhausted all the other millennial-maddening topics. My 93-year-old mother, who has made a living out of keeping her opinions to herself, opened her mouth and shut it before the words could come out.

“What, Mom?” I said. “Chime in.”

I knew she'd have something worth hearing on the topic. After all, the night my mother met my father, he proposed. She laughed. They got married three months later and lived happily ever after. 

“How about giving this a shot...” she, the grandmother of Olivia and the daughter, suggested. “You stop trying to find the right one and let the right one find you?”

Swipe right on that, Nana. Swipe right on that.

Why Family Vacations Are Worth Every Last Dime

I am such a creature of habit that when something like the holiday season descends upon me, my chakras do back flips, cartwheels and every other upside down and backwards move they can manage.

It doesn’t make much sense at all. I have all the ingredients of a perfect life, right down to the front-porched house and the overly-friendly yellow lab. My physical ailments, though annoying, do have their benefits. In respect for my bum knees, my family no longer makes me climb cramped staircases in rickety lighthouses, walk for miles on uneven surfaces in the pouring rain or lug my own 50-pound suitcase overstuffed with shoes, earrings, half my closet and a travel fan. 

Physically, I will endure. It’s my internal infirmities that I just can’t shake.  

This year, I decided to beat those chakras at their own game and proactively meet the holidays with reckless abandon. Let’s nip Christmas in the bud! Let’s nix the annual party! Let’s skip the tree! Let’s forsake the presents! 

Let’s go to California!

When the kids were growing up, we went on all kinds of vacations. We rented houses and hotel rooms in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. We changed sandy diapers in Avalon, New Jersey. We rode bicycles along the shores of Lake Memphremagog. We hiked in the Pocono Mountains, wandered around Colonial Williamsburg and temporarily lost two of the kids tubing on the Delaware River. We spent a week at a Dirty Dancing resort in the Catskills playing bingo and battling the terrible twos and one year, flew to an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica with 21 of our closest friends. 

But, eventually, family vacation took a backseat to sports. Instead of all five of us packing into one Old Minivan for a week-long escape, we split the family in three. One parent went one way, one went the other, and half of each of us went the third way. Our hard-earned dollars and well-deserved furloughs were spent on baseball tournaments, football combines and cheerleading competitions. 

Before we knew it, it was over. The kids went to college. The kids graduated. The kids moved out. The kids moved in. And then, our favorite middle child moved to California. 

Meanwhile, the ever-loving and hard-working spouse was passing his time racking up hotel and rental car points in the pursuit of newsworthy news stories. I did my part by overusing the United Airlines credit card under the guise of earning miles. Thus, we were primed for a free, and way overdue, family vacation. 

Of course, nothing in life is free and we learned the expensive lesson of black-out dates and over-inflated holiday pricing. But, by the time the reward points kicked out, we were fully committed and forged ahead, growling at our full-priced rooms and car cost. But, every cloud has a silver lining and we earned our just rewards, thanks to the spouse’s elite status. We received not one, but two, free bottles of water, PER PERSON at both the rental car site and again upon checking into the hotel. 

Christmas in California was warm(er) and wonderful. 

On Christmas Eve we googled our way to a musically-charged church service in Culver City, dragging along Harun, an old Teaneck crony who was passing through town. On Christmas Day, Max made a meal worthy of flying cross country; we opened presents we weren’t supposed to exchange and after much protest on my part (because remember, I don’t go to the movies with other human beings) we went to see Vice. I attribute my lack of resolve to Maker’s Mark. 

We crammed into the supposedly super-sized SUV and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway. We, (or rather, they, because I won’t touch sand) walked the Malibu beach. We ate tacos and sipped adult beverages. We rode bicycles through Marina Del Ray. We had dinner in Christmasly-lit Santa Monica and played Skee Ball on the pier. We strolled the eclectically energizing Venice Beach Boardwalk and they (because my knees would never, ever) climbed the Culver City Stairs.  

We got to spend lots of time with the heart that lured Max to Los Angeles. Taryn is fun and friendly and a little bit feisty. She’s smart and sweet and stunningly stylish. She responds appropriately to my inappropriate comments. But, best of all, she knows exactly how to keep Max calm, cool and collected. And for that alone, we fully expect to love her for life. 

Though I missed our traditional holiday dinner at the Santostefanos and a teeny, tiny part of me missed the daily vacuuming of pine needles, Christmas in California was worth every cent we thought we’d save.

Conflicting schedules, dwindling bank accounts and a world of excuses are powerful deterrents that can win the battle for years on end. But, sometimes you just have to push back and power through. 

Because, nothing can put a misaligned chakra back in place faster than a fun-filled family vacation. 

Empty Nest is Not a Kids-Only Syndrome

I always knew how it would end. My chaotic child-rearing life would build and bubble and boil over, but eventually simmer itself down. The three kids would come and go, leaving me with the Marmaduke-of-a-dog barking his fool head off at potential prowlers in the form of passing Pekinese. 

The Empty Nest is something all parents prepare for and some even pray for, all the days of their lives. When it comes, it is indeed empty and lonely, but oh, so calm and quiet. Amazingly, and rather quickly, the Empty Nest becomes the new normal and you find yourself shaking your head marveling over how you ever got through those endless days of driving the Old Minivan around in circles from dawn to dusk. How you managed to catch a baseball game, a cheerleading competition and a football combine, all in one afternoon. How you were able to surreptitiously monitor the ins-and-outs of the ever-slamming basement door at midnight, 2 am and 3 am. How you were able to remember all of your children’s names, let alone those of their friends, enemies and teachers. 

And when you reflect back on how in the world you survived, the answer sings out loud and clear. You got by with a little help from your friends.

Being the pack animal that I am, after I got married, I was loathe to move to a new state where I knew not a soul, despite loving (past, present and future) my spouse unconditionally. I worked at TV Guide magazine with a slew of friends, lived in a friend’s house whom I had known since I was five years old and hung out with friends I’d known since high school. Though my spouse and I had known each other for five years before we started dating, almost immediately after sealing the deal with a kiss, he went off to graduate school half a country a way. Afterwards, he worked at various newspapers in different cities before settling in New Jersey. Until we got married, we were never in the same place at the same time for more than a days-long visit. 

Throughout our long distance courtship, I kept my friends close and never understood, let alone experienced one of those dreaded clingy, one-on-one, can’t go out, travel, or think without my boyfriend or husband relationships. 

Friends have always been paramount to my very existence.

When I joined my spouse in New Jersey after we got married, I was completely friendless and remained that way for two months until I got a job at CNBC. CNBC was a new cable station at the time and filled with 20 and 30-somethings who worked like dogs because we were young, able and had no choice. It was the prime environment for making friends. I was back in business. 

And then, I had a baby. And another. And yet another. I started working part-time, leaving me two days a week alone with the kids. All alone. All day long. 

So, I signed up for Toddlekins at the town rec center, a so-not-me Mommy and Me class where we sang The Wheels on the Bus while flailing a multi-colored parachute. As I surveyed the circle of adulating mothers, I searched for kindred spirits.

If you look hard enough, you will find them. 

Dianne, Kerri, Anne and Susan, while not half as irreverent as I, took a chance and invited me to join their extracurricular Play Group. We rotated houses, eating bagels and drinking coffee as we alternately bragged about or admonished our thirteen collective kids. 

We didn’t believe in over-the-top birthdays; instead, we celebrated in the park with homemade cupcakes and party hats. We watched each other’s kids so we didn’t have to drag them all to doctor appointments or grocery stores. We trick-or-treated en masse, ending the night at the Landers’ house for pizza and Skittles. And, we spent New Year’s Eve together, making midnight come three hours early so we could get the kids to bed. 

We were a no-holds-barred group of friends, bouncing ideas and opinions back and forth, analyzing everything from off-color poop to off-putting personalities. Long after the youngest started school, we still kidlessly convened.

Those Play Group friends saved my soul.

Then, Anne moved back to the big city. 

Susan moved to the shore. 

And now, Dianne has moved to New Orleans.

Kerri and I are holding up the neighborhood, but Play Group has left the nest. 

This isn’t the first time friend groups have dispersed. When my kids were over-immersed in sports and we mothers were over-consumed with over-parenting, six or seven of us would spend Friday nights drinking copious amounts of wine at my kitchen table. But, one-by-one, they left. One stopped drinking, one started working, one stopped caring, one started dating. 

We’re all still friends and different configurations of the group get together, but as a whole, Friday Night Winers no longer exist.

As I enter my golden years, more and more friends are going. Ginny moved to Connecticut to be near her kids. Olivia’s off to live in a cruise-ship-on-land in Houston. Nancy migrated to Charleston. Peggy’s threatening to go out west. 

  

Whether it’s with sadness or shame, we spend years upon years gearing up for the Empty Nest. We know approximately when it’s going to happen and exactly what we’re going to do with unoccupied bedrooms. But at the same time, we know that though they’re no longer living under our roof, our kids haven’t forgotten where they can get a good meal, wash-and-fold service or the occasional bicoastal Venmo transaction.

When we say goodbye to our friends, whether literally or emotionally, it's a different kind of Empty Nest Syndrome.

There's the same void. The same nostalgic, remember-whens. The same I wish-so-and-so could see/hear/do this. The same how-did-we-get-so-olds. 

But unlike with the kids, there's no upside to saying goodbye to a friend. They don't clog your toilets. Or eat your leftovers. Or trash your house. 

So, you go to Book Club every month, even when you're reading historical fiction. You keep up with your Writer's Group even when you haven't written a single word. You meet Karen and Theresa for dinner even when it means a $30 Uber ride. You go to yoga even though you hate to hear people breathe. You keep playing Mahjong every single week. 

And you keep your life as full as you can. Because sometimes, no matter how prepared you think you are, Empty Nest Syndrome can get the best of you.