If you see me in the next couple of months, be kind. Take is easy on me, ok? Excuse my aloofness; my look of dismay. Forgive me if I seem out of sorts or a bit wonky…
My oldest son, Jonah. is going to ALASKA for 48 days and I can’t do a damn thing to stop him!
Yes, you read that right.
Jonah, my sixteen-year-old man-child is leaving me (and his cell phone) for SEVEN weeks and heading to The Last Frontier where there are 23 hours of sunlight, the moose are like squirrels (so they say) and I’m “not allowed” to talk to him from the time I drop him at the bus…to the time I pick his sweet tush up in August. Ok, that’s a lie. I get two phone calls. Like in prison. TWO ten-minute phone calls to hear his little voice and that’s it. He will ask me who got drafted in the NBA Draft, what his grade was on his AP World exam and if the Kayne album that dropped was any good.
Me? Oh, I’ll be holding back my tears.
I will be waiting with bated breath…hanging on every last word. You know they give me a window of time that he will be calling on the assigned “call day” and I’ll be literally holding the phone in my lap waiting for it to ring. In fact, I have dreams I miss the call! Ha. Like he can’t call back or something? I’m sweating as I type. I’m going to have to up my meds. Who the hell signed him up for this? Did I okay a trip of this magnitude? Glacier climbing, salmon fishing and sleeping in tents? A seven-week jaunt into the tundra that is Alaska with trippers that are only a few years older than him?
OMG WHY WOULD I ALLOW SUCH A THING?
Because, when your son that was diagnosed at two years old with Asperger’s Syndrome (then taken off the spectrum at 12) comes to you and says, “Mom, there’s this really cool trip to Alaska going out of Detroit with Tamarack Camps, can we talk to Dad?” As a parent, you say, “Yes.” And you swallow hard. And then, you suppress all the doubt and fear you have inside. You look at him with amazement and awe in your eyes…and wonder to yourself, “How did I get such a kick-ass kid?” Then you go online and Google the trip. You watch the video together and you cry. Oh, Mom cries. Jonah kinda gets a bit apprehensive…he says, “Mom, you think I can do it?”
And you say, “I know you can do it, baby.”
So…I digress, as I cry and type, (and make a note to buy a few extra bottles of Rosé) this kid will be ok. He is going to have the best seven weeks of his life; filled with amazing experiences and new friendships I never had at his age…hell, at any age! He will come home a better, stronger even more mature man-child. And I will be a better Mom for surviving it as well.
We will both be ok. It’s an adventure for both of us, The Alaska Trip. So, if you see me over the next couple of months…and I seem a little “crazed” you’ll know it’s because I’m surviving The Land of the Midnight Sun! Ummm..well, my version I get to pee in a toilet. Let’s be honest, I’d last about 2 hours in frickin’ Alaska. 😉
xo j