At the beginning of this summer when I quit my job, I had several goals on my mind when I looked towards the summer and what I wanted to do with my time (besides hiking, of course).
One of those goals revolved around my son, Mitchell. I haven’t talked much about here on the blog other than some random posts about being a single parent and having a boomerang man-child, as in One Happy Mama and Have You Experienced Costco Parenting Camaraderie? As you know, what happens on the internet stays on the internet. Forever.
I warned him when I quit my job that he was my project and difficult conversations have been a part of that. We have had an abundance of events and emotions to deal with in the last 9 years. I don’t share much about it here because in reality it is more his story than mine and I want to protect his privacy. But basically, unkind teen years in school and watching his father die from alcoholism when he was 17 have left a lifelong legacy that time and counseling may not fully heal.
Like a lot of parents, I look back and wonder about whether I made the right decisions over the years. Like the time I got a call from the New Mexico state patrol that they had Mitchell at the station because his dad had been pulled over for drinking under the influence on the way home to Texas from the airport and if the great grandparents didn’t get there in the next two hours they would be turning him over to child protective services. I got this call the night before I was supposed to get on a plane for Costa Rica with my sister for two weeks. Until I sat at home talking to my 11-year-old son in a Southwest police station with his dad is in a cell and praying that family would be there soon to pick him up before a social worker did, I didn’t know helplessness. Especially since I put him on the plane that morning in the first place thinking that because his dad was living with his parents Mitch would be safe visiting him while I was out-of-town. Yet again, my trust in his father betrayed and being the “nice guy” had been a mistake.
Even small choices haunt me, especially as he shares his perception of his childhood as he is able to look back in retrospect. Sure, he tells me that he feels that I didn’t have many options as a single parent but I’m not sure that is much consolation to this ache in my heart. I know this is not unique to me, it may be a universal part of the parent job description they don’t tell you about in the guidebooks. Wondering if you did enough for your child and agonizing over how things could have been different. All the while knowing you only have so much control over life’s journey.
Mitch and I love each other fiercely but we continue to work on our relationship as he has come to adulthood. The battle between wanting to be your own person and still needing your parent creates so much ambivalence and frustration. For both of us. We have come a long way and yet there is still room for growth and improvement.
When you suffer from anxiety, making even the smallest steps can be overwhelming. Whether it is finding a new job or going back to school, you can find yourself stuck in a frustrating-yet-more-comfortable-than-change place so easily. How does my son take strides towards independence and how to do I support him? How do you treat someone as an adult yet still have rules as a parent? Evolving roles as mother and son have been tricky to navigate. Our relationship is on solid rock but could use some buttressing. Some fortification.
As I looked back at the events and changes this year, he has been on the sidelines for a good portion of it, at least when it came to spending time together as a whole family. Some of it is him and some of it is me. This whole blended family thing is different for adult children, I think. Trying to include him in family activities at this age has been awkward, especially since he was living on his own for the first part of it. My husband’s boys are 11 and the girls are adults like my son. Their interests are very different, even what they like to eat. I often invite but usually end up turned down, “That’s okay.”
After leaving my job in the beginning of summer and looking to the months ahead and all my plans with my husband, friends and by myself, I wanted to include my son, too. The last two true vacations with just us seem so long ago. When he was 11, we spent two weeks driving down to California to visit Legoland, camping and doing the touristy thing along the way. We went to Hawaii when he was 13 and had so much fun surfing and snorkeling in Maui. He was happy as long as he had a shaved ice every day and could swim in the condo pool!
Sure, there have been multiple family camping trips and a road trip caravan to Nebraska with the family to move my baby brother to the University of Nebraska (Go Huskers!). That’s a long time ago, though. I think it is an indicator of all the stress our relationship has been through between high school and now, we would not have been able to spend that much time together with just us without strangling each other. Since then, there have been Little League games, hiking, his full-time, year round job and many other things that kept us from doing much travel. And his zero desire to do another road trip didn’t help.
In July, I was thinking about that and decided it was time for a vacation, just he and I. When would be the next time we both were in between jobs and free to take the time off? Maybe never. And my husband and I have plans to move (locally) and for him to go back to school in the next year. Big things. So, I asked Mitchell if he was interested in a getaway and somewhat surprisingly he said yes. I asked him to think about where he would like to go and a few days later broached the subject again.
“Did you think about where you would like to go or what you would like to do for vacation?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Castles. I would like to see castles.”
Not what I expected at all. My first response was to suggest a great castle in Colorado Springs, Glen Eyrie, stay with family, but then I thought better of it. That would be the practical me.
“Okay, castles it is.”
So, after a little bit of research and debate on the best place to go for his first real international travel, I bought plane tickets July 16th. We fly to the United Kingdom on Sunday for two weeks to see as many castles as we can in England, Wales and Scotland. Life is too short for anything less.
My dream this next year will be to think and worry less. Do more things from the heart. Follow passions. Be a little less planned and responsible. No, this trip was not in the budget, and will definitely influence some future decisions such how I go back to work. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with my son before he takes that next step in his life and there will be no regrets. And if it is meaningful to our relationship and helps us weather whatever comes next, then so be it.
Needless to say, the last month have been filled with planning, binge watching YouTube videos from Anglophenia and studying how to drive on left side of the road. No, there probably won’t be a whole lot of hiking on this trip since that is not my son’s thing but I am going to try to fit in as many “walks” as I can. He doesn’t eat Paleo, either, but I’m going to do my best to eat healthy. Aside from a few afternoon teas, fish and chips and Cadbury chocolate that is. When in Rome Britain, right? My hope is to be present and enjoy every minute.
And maybe when we return, we’ll simply have some wonderful memories of our time together. But maybe, just maybe, we’ll return to a stronger castle right here at home.
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