Ten More Days
Ouch. Pick a pain. The one in my stomach that goes straight to my heart. Or the weird draughty pain in the back of my throat as if there’s too much air in there. Then there is my wallet – my credit card is bouncing, while my phone is choked with messages from calls I have missed.
It’s my son, you see. I love him madly. He loves me back. But he is about to leave home and I’ve gone down a VERY strange path of behaviour.
I have no doubt it is a casebook Guilty Parent situation. With 10 days to go, I’m suddenly trying to fix everything that I missed during the busier times, aka the last 20 years.
I must fix his autoimmune disease. I must get him the perfect lunch containers so his big boy lunch is protected in transit. I need to find all those missing black socks so he has enough pairs when he leaves. I must make delicious long-form no-cheat risotto to erase the memory of all the times I didn’t make it for dinner, not to mention all those times I didn’t even make it home.
There is so much to do for this glorious son of mine that I am getting hysterical.
“COVID-19 has brought on cheap rentals in great places that 20-year-olds love to live,” is part of the PR line I tell friends. His sister has already left the nest so it’s not like I don’t know what’s about to happen. But this time it feels different. I’m realising that my boy is now a man, and that his departure will throw the focus more firmly on my relationship with the last man standing in our house: his father, my husband.
I wake up at midnight, then 2am, then again at 3.45am, and I go check that he’s still in his room, as if time has suddenly fast forwarded us past these 10 precious days when he won’t be there anymore.
I am only taking on work which I know will see me finished and home by 4pm, so I can partake in that glorious unrushed banter a mother and her grown child share in the afternoons while the foundations for dinner are being made.
“When I look in the mothering mirror, however, I am left wondering if I did anything specific for him at all. I worry if he’s ready for what awaits, but then realise I’m falling straight into the paradox of the parenting trap.”
I’m not going to lie, there is a slight unease during these afternoon interludes. I’m foolishly attempting food with what he calls “extras”, those hard-to-find-specialty-store ingredients that belong to long weekend menus, not casual Tuesday nights. Dinners that take hours to make yet are inhaled in minutes. I’m reminded again of the domestic drudgery and repetitiveness that I have juggled with my punishing work hours for close to two decades.
Then there’s the laundry, done as soon as his work clothes hit the washing hamper. My turnaround is so fast that he begs me to calm down. But I can’t, son. I can’t! I only have 10 more days to show you how much I love you. I have so much to fix.
I realise this is a race I am not going to win. I’m burning food and spoiling every pan we own. I’m putting on washing loads at less than capacity. Then I’m angry at myself for going into this ’50s mum autopilot mode. I am more than my new faux domestication.
As the days march on, I use my time more wisely, stockpiling his favourite mayo, ordering catering-size packets of panko (the boy loves to crumb) and researching the best veg shopping in his new neighbourhood. It’s steady work. It also plants some valid future excuses for future visits. Two random visits to every provisions-based drop-off seems a reasonable ratio. This practical business, though, is just as unworthy as the overwashing, so I get busy planning our last meal together. I decide to throw money I don’t really have at a restaurant booking. Yes, that’s it, I will buy us the best of times! A last meal that will cover up all of the horrible ones I’ve served him, the ones when you know your child is hungry for things other than food, but you’re too exhausted to deliver anything that isn’t on a plate.
We think we have control over our kids. We control what we feed them, what we let them watch, what salt we serve them, how we make their washing smell, what we consider to be right for them. When I look in the mothering mirror, however, I am left wondering if I did anything specific for him at all. I worry if he’s ready for what awaits, but then realise I’m falling straight into the paradox of the parenting trap. The reason he can move is because has a car and insurance, both of which he paid for. He pays his own super, he knows right from wrong, he protests against climate change, he grew up in a feminist household, he brews his coffee on the stove top rather than opting for wasteful single-use pods. His football team made headlines when they lost the grand final but let their teammate with Down syndrome onto the field to kick a goal.
A few nights before D-day, I tighten the binoculars on our last 20 years together. I try to pull focus on a highlight reel, but it keeps on blurring out. Just one big fuzzy, busy beautiful feeling. Like a flip book, I see his baby face morph into his handsome, beautiful adult head.
Tonight it’s the two of us home for dinner and he is pleased he doesn’t have to endure another two-course meal. Instead we raid the fridge and he fixes me my favourites. He sits close to me and tells me to stop trying to be so “extra”. He tells me it’s becoming weird and we should just enjoy this time. I admit to him that when he comes home, I try to be doing naturally impressive things. He laughs – he already knows that – and says that his memories of me at home are me on the phone. Or, worse, on the toilet on the phone.
He tells me that he has the best memories. He forgives me for playing subliminal performance tapes during his sleep ahead of national sports trials. And for the time he did his own sports press at our dining room table and I thought the journalist was there for me. He tells me it’s okay that I raided the Ritalin he used during his HSC. He tells me he thinks my work is important and he knows what it has done for our family. He senses my one-part neediness to double-parts joy on hearing this.
In that moment I imagine another flip book, one that is future-proofed. He is safe, he is happy and he is working through adulthood. He tells me he has everything he needs. I give him the I’ll-need-more-proof face and without missing a beat, he throws my favourite quote back at me: “You are the average of the three conversations you have most often,” he says. I am floored that he remembers the quote in full.
“Come on, let’s talk about good stuff,” he says. We talk about the delicious banh xeo we are going to eat, trips we can plan and new coffee grinders we can buy. Now I know we – I mean, I – am going to be okay.
Words and photos_ Megan Morton