by Kari Lizer
To which he replied, “I’ll be careful, Kickapoo.”
I ran out before my tears fell over my lower eyelashes and the biting of the insides of my cheeks stopped holding back the hiccup sob that was waiting to escape. I rushed past a security guard who was making sure nobody left their moving boxes where they didn’t belong—and she very kindly averted her eyes.
I ran to the 4Runner, past the other parents telling their children to stay off drugs, and locked myself inside. I only cried for a minute. Just a momentary wave, because after all, this was the moment I’d been waiting for. And then I drove away, alone, on the nearly empty road, the two and a half hours to my house in Vermont. The place of my dreams. The one I’d fantasized escaping to when my days of school drop-off lines, jazz concerts, sporting events, theater productions, safety assemblies, parent socials, grad night committee meetings, annual picnics, Earth Days, world music nights, parent education seminars, SAT practice tests, tutors, science camp drop-offs, college tours, college applications, winter formals, spring formals, tennis lessons, saxophone lessons, orthodontist appointments, wisdom teeth, ADHD testing, genius testing, grocery shopping, club soccer driving, community service forcing, fourteen-hour-a-day nagging, short-order cooking, monthly trips to the body shop days were over.
It also happened to be my fifty-fifth birthday. I’ve never been one to make a fuss over my own birthday. In fact, birthday celebrations have become a pretty reliable indicator for me when it comes to determining my kind of people. My kind of people celebrate other people’s birthdays. Not my kind of people spend a lot of time celebrating their own. But for this particular birthday, it probably would have served me well to make even the smallest of plans for myself on my first night as an empty nester instead of digging into the boxed wine from my camper trailer at four o’clock in the afternoon and tuning into the Criminal Minds marathon. Watching hour after hour of Mandy Patinkin try to comprehend the evil in the world while crazy people found new and crazier ways to lop off (mostly) women’s body parts was a dark way to usher in a new year and begin a new life chapter.
Sitting there, surrounded by nature and nothing else, I started to realize a few things. The first was how really far away the refrigerator was from the TV room, so finally I just brought the box of wine into the TV room, which could have been the beginning of a really bad birthday and definite downward spiral.
The second thing I realized was, as with most of my fantasies, I hadn’t really thought this “take a break from work, no kids, live alone in the woods, and think about stuff” thing through. It was the same with my fantasy in high school about falling in love with an escaped prisoner. I lived in Chino, a town with four prisons. At my high school, we didn’t have fire drills; we had prison break drills. When the alarm sounded, everyone had to walk single file out to the parking lot and board buses, which would then take us home, so the prisoners couldn’t take the school hostage, I guess. Sometimes the sheriff’s department would show up on our back road with dogs searching for the escapee. My fantasy was that when I went down near the back road to feed my horse, I would find the wanted, desperate, and handsome prisoner hiding in the shed where we kept the horse feed. He would pull me into the shed and force me to be quiet, maybe by kissing me… I don’t know. Anyway, the prisoner would explain that he was 100 percent innocent of his crimes, and so I would agree to help him hide. I would keep him there, bringing him food in my tube top and overalls, and we would fall in love. And somehow while we were falling in love in my backyard, the police would discover he was innocent, and we would live happily ever after. Fortunately for me, I never came face-to-face with any of the escaped prisoners because I’m pretty sure none of them were innocent. Or handsome.
And now, here I was, alone in the middle of the woods in Vermont, and for the first time in more than twenty years, I didn’t have a writing job on a TV show, a deal with a studio, or a child at home. I didn’t have a boyfriend or any hobbies to speak of. I didn’t play an instrument or knit. I had a couple of friends in Vermont, but they had jobs. They weren’t really available to hang out with me all day. So what the fuck was I going to do with all my freedom? What did I do now with this person whom my children raised?
I turned off the gruesome television and sat in front of the window, looking at the miles of emptiness. Was I really going to have to have another fucking coming-of-age moment? Even at this age, when I had to wear glasses into the shower so I could tell which bottle was the shampoo and which was the conditioner? I spent my teens chasing friends and money and boys and a personality that suited me. I spent my twenties chasing love and money and fame. I spent my thirties chasing babies and money and success. I spent my forties chasing self-respect and balance and money. What would I chase in my fifties and beyond?
I was done chasing money. Because I know that too much money, like too much porn, can only squash your joy. As far as porn goes, anything your mind can imagine is available to you, as I once explained to my horrified young boys. You can watch women with men. Women with women. Men with men. Two women with two men. Spanking, sucking, bondage, bestiality, old ladies, big ladies, nurses, aliens, people dressed up like babies, cowboys, robots… “We get it, we get it!” my poor boys screamed, closing their eyes and covering their ears. My point was, just because you can access it with the click of a mouse doesn’t mean you should. Because once you see everything there is to see, it’s pretty likely that the simple joy of a naked boob is no longer going to do you any good at all. And that would be a shame.
People with too much money have the same problem. They wouldn’t be able to find joy in discovering a long-lost ChapStick in a coat pocket they haven’t worn for two years. The staff would have found that a long time ago. They also wouldn’t be wearing a two-year-old coat. The overly rich no longer remember the thrill of going into the supermarket and being able to afford specialty salads. I was poor recently enough to still get a little wave of dread when the waitress took my credit card at a nice restaurant, waiting to see if it was going to go through. And to get a little rush of excitement when it did go through. I would hate to lose that. So I wouldn’t chase money.
I wouldn’t chase love, either. Love seems only to run away when you chase it. I think I caught my self-respect a little while ago. I had no interest in fame, which seemed like a drag. Maybe there was really nothing left to chase. Maybe I would just sit here for a minute or a month and see what came to me.
And that was the third thing I realized. It’s possible I have everything I need. I have my ChapStick, my chickens, and my fine, funny children—all three of whom remembered to call me on my birthday.
Sometimes They Come Back
When your kids graduate from college and start their journey into the world, finally ready to put their education and life skills to good use, sometimes something happens while they’re figuring it all out. While they’re weighing their options and opportunities and sorting through the confusion of their early twenties, sometimes they come back.
Elias had been working on a campaign in Iowa for the midterms, and when that was over, while he looked for his next election, he came back home. Back to his old bedroom. Back to leaving dirty dishes on his nightstand and forgetting to put the alarm on when he returned home at 2:00 a.m. Back to sleeping in until one in the afternoon and complaining that I’m a loud walker early in the morning. Back to only using a towel for one forty-minute shower and then leaving it on the wood floor instead of hanging it for a second use, prompting me to consider printing up some of those hotel cards pleading for him to consider the planet and reuse towels rather than have housekeeping replace them daily. Back to eating the leftover fried rice that I had dreamed about having for breakfast. Back to turning down my requests for company on dog walks and movies, shopping trips and meals out. When I ask him what time he’ll be home, I’m informed that he’s an adult now and not required to apprise me of his comings and goings. So I’m back to sleepless nights, waiting to hear his car in the driveway, s
neaking into his room every hour or so to look and see if that’s a body in his bed or just the pile of crumpled sheets and discarded clothing he left behind when he went out to who knows where with God knows whom. My home has once again been transformed.
Not too long ago it was a lonely, empty nest that over time became a solitary but tranquil, very tidy haven. Now it has developed into a hostage crisis. Every once in a while, the sullen troll will emerge from under the bridge in the afternoon, grab a can of beer along with my newly purchased tub of Trader Joe’s hummus and my very favorite sesame crackers, then disappear back into his lair. He doesn’t speak or even make eye contact. He’s going through a thing. So we’re going through a thing. It leads me to think about what I was doing in my early twenties—none of it good—and that it wasn’t anything a parent should bear witness to.
Friends advise me that it’s temporary. It’s a hard phase, this launch period, and a little time to regroup is not so much to ask, they say. He’s putting feelers out, they say. “But he never comes out of his room!” I whine. Everything’s done on computers now, they say. So I say nothing. But when I realize that what I thought was a thumb drive sticking out of his laptop, downloading what I thought must be his résumé, being sent out to what I thought must be his next career prospects, but was instead a USB-charged vape cigarette, I had to speak up. I don’t know what a vape cigarette is exactly, but I keep seeing ads on the sides of buses warning that they are very dangerous and we shouldn’t be kidding ourselves about their harmful effects. And there was also something on NPR about how these companies are marketing them to children with fruit flavors and they get them hooked and they have as much nicotine as cigarettes and might cause something called wet lung or popcorn lungs or cancer.
They’ve banned them in San Francisco, and San Francisco is right about everything! Besides, I quit smoking the day I found out I was pregnant with him, which I think gives me the right to an opinion.
I come into his room, a little more aggressively than I mean to, my voice a little more confrontational than I mean for it to be, because I’m scared, I realize. I mean, maybe the bed and the vaping are warning signs that something really bad is going on with him, so I say loudly and abruptly, “Are you still going to the gym?”
To which he replies, “Yes. I’m there right now,” without looking at me. When I don’t back away from the threshold of his room, which smells like a combination of ramen, bad man deodorant, and old beer, he looks at me, not patiently, and says, “Mom, I’ve been working eighteen-hour days for eleven months. I’m taking a break.” I bite my tongue before I mention I’ve been working eighteen-hour days for forty years and I’m still waiting for my break because nobody likes a martyr. Unfortunately.
Again, I’m thinking about myself at twenty-two. Drinking too much, smoking too much. Making terrible decisions with terrible people that led to terrible mistakes. It was only because I was too broke that I didn’t succeed as a serious drug addict. And it was with that regret and shame that I did everything I could to make sure my kids had not just opportunities but a safety net to ensure they didn’t lose themselves, like I did, and had the tools to stay on track, like I didn’t.
When they’re babies, you think all you have to do is get past the time when they’re hurtling toward every sharp corner that wants to take out their eye. Just make it to the point where they can no longer drown in an inch of water, and you’ll be fine. But then you have to worry about some creep pulling up in a van and offering to show them a puppy so he can snatch them away. Then there’s the drugs that appear in junior high, and now the lurking depression waiting for them in their twenties… thirty was no picnic… I don’t want him to get divorced in his forties! Okay. I know. I’m getting ahead of myself. First thing: get him out of bed. I don’t know why, but the expression “idle hands make the devil’s work” keeps popping into my head. My panic is turning me into Piper Laurie from the movie Carrie.
“If you’re bored,” I say, “and you want to earn some money, I could give you a few things to do around here.”
“I’m not bored, but what kind of things?”
“You could go to the hardware store and replace the latches on the fences. All the screws are stripped.”
“No, I don’t really want to do that.”
“You could take my car in and get that tire replaced for me.”
“No, thanks.”
“Well,” I say, acting hesitant, “there is one thing… I mean, I kind of wanted to do this myself, but…”
He is looking at me, possibly vaguely interested.
“The porch needs to be restained.”
“What do I have to do?” Aha, I think I just Tom Sawyer-d him into getting off the vape pipe and being a productive citizen.
I start to give him a list of supplies. “You’re going to need some tarps to lay on the concrete—”
“I don’t need those,” he says. “I’ll just be careful not to spill.”
He also says he doesn’t need to masking tape the molding; he’s pretty good at painting straight lines. Or small brushes for the corners or sandpaper or rags or coveralls. His whole plan is just to rush in there and start rolling out deck stain willy-nilly, slapping on color without so much as a pressure wash or spackle. The only thing he says he needs is a long extension cord so he can bring his speaker outside for music. Finally, feeling a little lightheaded from his sheer cluelessness, I say I’ll go to the store and get the supplies. He seems fine with that and crawls back into his bed while I head out to Lowe’s.
Two hours later, when I come back, loaded down with the proper supplies, he’s sound asleep. I wake him up with a hard poke to the back. Which makes him mad. But I’m mad, too, so tough shit. I follow him out to the porch, resisting my urge to kick him. He spends ten minutes carefully positioning his speaker, then pops open the five-gallon container of deck paint and is about to dip the roller inside, when I scream, “Stop! You have to stir it! Then pour it into a tray and roll it from there.”
He picks up the paint stirrer stick, glaring at me, then moves it around a few times inside the tub of paint. When he pulls it out, some paint goes flying, several drips landing on the concrete.
“That’s why you need to put the tarps down!” I shriek.
Elias drops the stick into the paint and looks at me. “Are you going to be standing out here the whole time? Because if you are, I’m not doing this.”
Trying to sound reasonable (because I believe in my heart I am), I say, “I am employing you. I believe I have a right to a job well done. You haven’t even swept the porch off yet, and you’re about to just slap some paint down on it, which means all the little pieces of crap on the porch will get permanently painted into the surface.”
“So?”
“So you just can’t paint like this! Just not caring about anything. Rolling over cat hair and dead bugs. What are you doing with your life? I mean, it’s like everything I’ve been saying to you since you were two years old hasn’t gotten through at all. About being careful. And taking care of your body. About our family and addiction and how it’s basically like you’re walking around with a loaded gun! And how paint preparation is the most important step of all!”
I’m practically hyperventilating.
That’s when Elias explodes.
“Stop! Just stop, okay? I can’t take it anymore. You need to back off and let me live! You are way too much in my business, and you need to let me be! I hear you peeking in my room at night. I feel you watching what I’m eating. Looking at what I’m drinking! Let me do it my way! You are not right about everything all the time! I don’t care what you think! I am not you!”
And then he storms off. His pants catch the end of the stirrer stick and a little more paint flicks onto the concrete (where there aren’t any tarps laid down). And one small blob hits my favorite jeans. I hear the door to his bedroom slam. Then I hear the TV turn on. And that’s it. I stand there for a minute.
Thinking about what just
happened. How I wish I’d stuck to talking about painting. But also marveling because I find it very curious when you tell someone to butt out of your life, when you make a big showing of “I am an adult who needs my space, and you need to let me be, I’ve had it!” kind of speech, isn’t that the part where you walk out the front door, get in your car, and go someplace? Do you walk back into your bedroom, snuggle under the covers, and wait for dinner? Do these kids not know how to tell someone to fuck off? When I told my parents to fuck off, I got into my Volkswagen Beetle, zoomed out of their driveway, found myself a boyfriend with a sister with a couch on the boardwalk in Venice, and didn’t call for seven months. But he’s not me. Which, I guess, is his point.
The next morning, Elias is up early, music blasting on the porch, vape pen sitting on the railing next to a cup of coffee. He rolls the paint onto the boards, not starting at one end and working his way across in a logical manner—but beginning directly in the middle and painting out in a circle until it reaches the edges, like a madman. By afternoon, he’s done. It goes fast because he doesn’t prime. And it looks good. Not perfect. But good. Especially once I put the indoor/outdoor rug down and the patio furniture. And, I mean, let’s be honest: once the cat pees out there, who’s really going to notice if there’s a little paint on the molding? Maybe letting him do things his way isn’t as scary as it feels. And letting go doesn’t necessarily mean catastrophe will follow. He’s not me. Thank God. I pay him something in the neighborhood of $140 an hour so he won’t be mad at me anymore. He picks up his speaker and goes back to his room to continue going through his thing. I start cleaning up the painting supplies and continue to talk to myself—which, I guess, is now “my thing.”