Mothers

I got scared. The statcounter on the site told me that someone from the hospital where I work--that was where the IP address traced back to--had spent almost 4 hours on the site. So I stopped posting. I didn't want to lose my job. I still don't want to lose my job, but I also want to write about what I do and get it out there, and I've been reading Jack Kerouac, so I'm all full of myself.

I don't think this will be as interesting as it has been. Both Nick and Lilly have gone off to college. Well, Nick is still here for a few more days, sitting beside me on the couch, Tonks in between us, watching Castle reruns. He's such a beautiful boy. He just got back from Belgium. He's trying to figure it all out. In a way, I want to see a little more questing spirit in him, a little more of the rambler I was, but in another, I'm happy he's more or less a homebody. Jay says he's going through his Bukowski phase...He's skinny, but sort of soft--he never exercises. He lists his home as New Orleans now, and is moving into a little wooden house on Freret on the wrong side of the garden district with a few buddies this year. He has this Miami Vice-esque fuzz on his face that is a little more than a five-o-clock shadow and a little less than a beard. All the young men at this wedding we just got back from in Aspen had this, so I guess it's the thing. He's so joyful, though. He hasn't figured anything at all out about women. He spent all his money on TinTin comics in Belgium--because, even though we already own the whole set, "the European versions are a little different than the American ones." Which I guess is true, but to make this purchase, he couldn't afford any gifts. He brought back one box of Leonidas chocolates and gave Lilly and I instructions to "only eat the top layer" because he planned to give Gina--the girl he's dating that I haven't met yet--the bottom layer. I told him that was a really bad idea. So he gave Lilly and I the whole box of chocolates (my secret goal--I'm the MOTHER for chrissakes and I get a WHOLE box of chocolates, because I'm the one who worked all the overtime), bought Gina something local and told her it was from Belgium. I felt bad pulling one over on Gina, but, oh well, to the victor go the spoils. All mothers are secretly in competition with their son's girlfriends.

Lilly went to college last week. Nick and Jay and I dropped her off. The college application process was brutal, with a lot of disappointments. Mostly traceable to a very unfortunate error on her common app and some screw-ups on the part of her well meaning, but very new, college counselor, Mrs. Bass. Anyways, she ended up at Sewanee. "The universitay of the Sayh-outh" Jay says at every opportunity. It's a beautiful campus--uncannily beautiful. More beautiful than Dartmouth. I didn't cry when I dropped her off--but I burst into random tears at every opportunity. The mothers are out in force, dropping their children off every where--we can spot each other. Every where I went, I found another mother, just like me. Dropping off her youngest kid in Boulder, at UK, --one told me she'd gotten diarrhea, another had just bought a puppy. We would spot each other, tell our stories, and burst into tears. Our men would stick their hands in their pockets and look uncomfortable.

I don't know. This sounds cliche, but I don't know who I am without my children. I don't know what will motivate me. I don't know what will sweeten life. All the hard times. All the poor times. I had two sweet little babies, and no matter what happened, they were always there. They were worth every shelved dream, every bad day, every break-up, every stupid boring job.

Well, that's my 1/2 hour.