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Nate left home when he was 18 years old. He moved half way across the country to go to college, fell in love with California and stayed there. Eight years later he moved back to the Midwest, got his own place and we began to know each other as adults. We hadn’t been estranged when he was in California, but a phone relationship with visits at the holidays is a different type of relationship than living in the same town and seeing each other routinely.
My brother says when he walks into our parents’ house he immediately reverts to his 15-year-old self. That’s likely because he doesn’t live in the same town as our parents. Whatever the reason, I definitely did not want my son to feel that way when he came home. I had to transition from Mom the authoritarian to Mom the friend who offered advice when asked for.
We both had to determine how often we wanted to spend time together and when we needed our space. I needed this as much as he did. When Nate first left, I missed him terribly and didn’t know what to do with my new spare time. Slowly, over those eight years, I developed a new routine for myself. I evolved from my identity as “Nate’s Mom” to “Stacey.” Now that he was back, I didn’t want either of us to revert to our old roles.
He may not have even been aware this was happening, but I was keenly aware.
I didn’t want our time together to be obligatory so I wasn’t going to demand he come to a family dinner every Sunday. As much as I wanted to spend time with him, I wasn’t going to cancel any plans I had when he called to ask me to go do something with him. In other words, our relationship was evolving to mirror the type of relationship I have with my friends. As I would do for any friend, I helped him move into his apartment: I put his dishes into his cabinets while he and his friends from High School days hauled in the heavy furniture from the U-Haul he had driven from L.A. back to St. Paul. He bought pizza and beer for everyone who helped him move in. I stayed for that and then said, “Good bye.” The Mom in me wanted to stay to make sure sheets got put on the bed so he’d get a good night sleep on his first night in his new apartment. Instead, I kept that little bit of heartache to myself, kissed him on the cheek and told him to enjoy his evening with his old buddies.
When I go to his home now, it still takes all I have not to say Mom things like, “pick up your dirty socks and put them in a hamper” or “how old is this food in the fridge?” I try really hard to hold my tongue. My litmus test is, if I wouldn’t say it to a friend, I won’t say it to him. I can’t say that I don’t slip sometimes, but it’s rare enough that he just laughs at me when I do.
He’s been back in town nine months now and we’ve got a rhythm. Not a routine, which is what I wanted to avoid, but a rhythm. Sometimes he just wants to hang out with me. Sometimes I just want his company. And that’s what we ask from each other. Other times we’ll extend an invitation to the other to join in an activity. We each know it’s ok to say “no” if it’s something we really don’t want to do or we already have something else planned with other people.
Last night we went to a local music venue together and ran into an acquaintance of mine who has two daughters in High School. She said, “I think it’s so cool that you two do things together. Emily (her H.S. Senior) wouldn’t even acknowledge me if I ran into her the mall.” I replied, “Wait until she’s 27. Your relationship will be different.” Yet thinking about it, even when Emily outgrows her teen years their relationship will only change if Carol works at it – just like every other relationship in our lives.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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