One kid.
(Who grew up)
18 years of memories
A photo album
Simmer for 20 years. Serve in a college apartment with very white walls, but good light and fun archways.
Add cupcakes to taste.
Optional:
Your kid doing a college radio show as you drive home in the dark
Accidentally texting your college philosophy professor from 28 years ago
I thought that nothing could top the emotional hurricane of ordering a graduation cap for your kid while listening to “Landslide,” but then, two years later, I heard my son’s voice come through the car speakers and a song dedicated “to my mom, on the highway home,” and the tears started.
And didn’t stop.
For the whole three-hour ride.
Face Plumbing
For a long time, I was on meds that I said “broke” my face plumbing. I don’t remember all the names of all the depression and anxiety pills I’ve tried, but there have been a lot.
Finally, my doc and I settled into - well, you can’t cry, but you CAN go outside and drive.
(That was how bad it got for a while.)
And so I accepted that broken face plumbing came with my pills - free from Walgreens.
Stupid Therapy
But then my therapist said that I really should be able to cry sometimes.
It’s good for us, she said. The chemical makeup of sad tears and happy tears and mad tears are all different, and releasing those chemicals is helpful.
“Maybe this is why you always feel like you have something stuck in your throat when we talk about the really hard stuff,” she proposed. “You need to let out the feelings.”
And then.
And then.
This woman - who is supposed to be ON MY SIDE, prescribed Pixar films.
I Don’t Hate Disney
Years ago now - probably 10 or 12 - my friend accused me of “hating Disney.”
My daughter mentioned she had never seen one of the most beloved Disney movies, probably Bambi or the elephant one, and so my friend started asking her about other popular childhood films.
No - she had never seen the meatball scene in Lady and the Tramp.
No - she was not aware that a children’s film character existed who wanted to make a Coat out of Dogs.
She hadn’t seen most of the movies my friend listed.
“Oh my GOD,” my friend said very dramatically AT ME.
“You hate Disney.”
But I told her no - that wasn’t correct at all. I just hated the way Disney movies made me feel.
And she said how do they make you feel?
And I said no - just that they make me feel.
And she said this:
_____________.
Nothing.
She just opened her mouth, and then closed it, and then we probably started talking about something else like kombucha or sourdough starter because this is a story from around 2010.
I Make My Own Feelings From Scratch
See, here is the thing:
I make plenty of my own feelings.
A long time ago I stopped making accidentally murdering kombucha and sourdough, but I am a culinary genius with emotions.
James Beard knows me.
My brain has received Michelin Stars.
My soul is in Zagat’s.
I don’t need movies to make me feel. I need movies to help me not feel.
Like Horrible Bosses.
I just want to see Jason Bateman and Ted Lasso and Charlie - mostly Charlie, when he car-dances to “That’s Not My Name.”
That’s what I really need in my life.
And that’s why it took me two years to put photos in an album.
Because for two years, I have been surviving. Getting by. Faking it til I could make it.
The Blue Album
I bought the blue album in 2022, when my son graduated from high school and we threw him a party.
I managed to print out a ton of photos to display at the event.
(I was doing so GREAT, you guys. I would put all the photos in an album after the party, and he would have 18 years of memories to cart around to dorm rooms and apartments and eventually a Home, where he would pull out his blue album and show his kids - “look at Daddy dressed as Abraham Lincoln, holding a stuffed meerkat.”)
I ordered a cake.
I made invitations, and found old addresses and sent them.
I even delegated. I asked my husband to get some balloons.
From all outward appearances, I was functioning. Some would say thriving.
Definitely coping.
Definitely not spiraling into an abyss of lonely couch sitting.
Let’s Try Another Med
And so before the party, because I was doing so well, I told my doctor the truth - that inside I was, ya know, dying a little, and she said, “Let’s try another med.”
And I said - “Are there any left?”
And she said yes, but I could tell, we were getting toward the bottom of the barrel.
And so I said - Is it OK to wait to change to this until after my son’s graduation party?
And she said, “Well … why?” and I said …
I said this …
I said to her:
“I just don’t know how well this med will work or how long it will take to kick in and I just don’t want to get all emotional at his party and mess everything up.”
And she said OK.
And I Guess Things Were?
And I guess things were - OK - for the past two years.
I took the new pill, and then she kept increasing my dose, and then I got diagnosed with ADHD, and started meds, and I felt a bit better in some ways.
In other ways I felt worse because it was like I had started taking a Spotlight with breakfast - suddenly so much smoke was cleared, and I saw - Oh girl - You are on the Wrong Road.
But I didn’t think about what I could really do next, because I was still just numb enough.
I was taking the same anxiety med as one of my cats, and the two of us would just look at each other like:
Yeah … right?
We miss Owen.
This is awful, but also, so wonderful, right?
Right?
The Recipe for Making Yourself Cry
So then, this is what you do I guess, when you can’t cry …
You try ANOTHER new med.
Then you take out all the photos you printed, and you put them into little piles.
And then you start carefully putting them into an album, and you go into a hyper fixation trance, because it’s easier than feeling.
And then you pack up that photo album and some gifts and flowers and cupcakes, and your mom, and you take everything to your kid’s college apartment, and you have a birthday party.
And then, toward the end of the visit, during a prolonged Midwest Goodbye, you realize that last year his birthday fell on a weekend, and so it occurs to you that this is the first year you will NOT see him on his actual birthday, and you hug him again, and again, and then stumble to the car, and watch him walk away and you start to sniffle a bit.
He has to go - he has a shift at the college radio station.
And so you turn on the radio and listen, and within a few minutes, you hear your child’s voice through the car speakers.
And luckily his shift is only an hour, but still - you can’t stop crying.
You need an IV maybe, because the human body is not meant to output this level of saltwater.
You sit and you think about the chemical makeup of all the tears and realize your face is a Periodic Table, probably.
You’re happy and sad and mostly grateful and then there is just relief.
Relief that you can let it all out.
Like in movies when someone opens a fire hydrant on a hot day.
And no one is mad.
The police don’t arrest anybody. They get it.
It was just all too much for too long.
The Photo and the Text
And so somewhere on the highway, through tears that feel like a cool shower at the end of the hottest day, you start texting friends and family a photo.
The waitress at our restaurant asked if we wanted a Polaroid and we said (somebody said):
“Yes- thank you so much - it’s his birthday!” and do you know what she did?
She didn’t bring everyone out singing because that wouldn’t have worked for this story at all.
She brought out a single candle, and placed it in front of my now 20-year-old son.
I know it sounds supernatural and suspicious to say that the candle went out, just as we finished eating, but it really did.
But not before I snapped this picture …
Which I sent to a handful of people, including my college philosophy professor from 28 years ago, whom I reconnected with recently.
I was embarrassed, but she handled it so kindly.
We chatted about Letterkenny and chocolate pretzels, and somewhere in there, I arrived back here. Home.
And I didn’t feel like crying anymore. Instead, I crawled into bed, and slept for 9 straight hours and when I woke up, I remembered what my friend Jenn said when I texted her that picture through all the tears and told her it was the first time I would NOT see him on his birthday and she said:
“Today was his birthday.”
The Chemical Makeup of a Tear-Stained Face
Somehow, during the past two years, I have been lucky enough to acquire a few new female friends who Get It.
This includes the college professor friend, and Jenn, and then, along with the rest of the Avengers, we battle through this Change that happens as kids grow up.
We’re a Greek Chorus - we’re all pretending to be fine and singing about how to be fine, and it’s all for the audience.
Inside, we know that each other’s hearts are a bit broken, but also that it really is OK.
We aren’t alone.
We all know the complexity of this time, and we all know the unique chemical blend of tears that finally fall:
Love.
Hope.
Loss.
Grief.
Joy.
Feeling. Finally.
All of it all together all at once.
When we dropped my oldest off at college for the first time, my heart hurt so much! I thought it would break in half! Now we have three in college with two still at home. I still feel sad at times, but it does get easier over time.