“If you guys want to go on the boardwalk, go ahead.”
My son and his friend looked at me, eyes wide. I might have seen my twelve-year-old, only a year
or so away from dwarfing both my husband and me, pinch himself to see if he was
dreaming. He is a huge child. I can’t stop looking at him.
“Really?” he asked slowly, not daring to break the spell of my certain flash of insanity, or worse, to find that I am joking.
Really. These two had
been antsy, wandering around the rental condo for the past hour or so. Dinner was over, and none of the adults were
quite ready to brave the sandy post-beach crowd, meandering through pairs of
slow-moving grandparents and their smallish grandchildren, carefully passing young
families pushing strollers and dragging toddlers, dodging the dive-bombing, ever-hungry
seagulls, and being startled by packs of teenagers getting shout-outs from their raucous counterparts.
Take your money and go.
Don’t forget the cell phone!
Check in at seven! Be back at eight-thirty! Stay on the boardwalk! Don’t talk to strangers! Stick together! My full protective-mom mode kicked in as I
realized that I was allowing my first-born child, my first baby, to go out in a
strange public place among hundreds of people we didn’t know. On his own.
Well, with a friend, but still.
We have been coming to this boardwalk each year for the past
eleven. He knows it well, knows where our
favorite ice cream is located, where the new mini-golf is to be found, that the
store that used to sell those huge cupcakes is no longer there, where we got our
first hermit crabs that died a week later.
He is not in a strange place. He
has been coming here every year since he was a baby; his memories are
well-established. We know what they are,
because we made them happen.
Every year, the memories are orchestrated by the adults, the
parents. We decided what they would see,
what they would do, what they would remember.
We shielded them from all else, all the things that we didn’t want them
to remember because of their age, the cost, the time involved, our own personal
desire (or non-desire) to do them: the water park, para-sailing, deep sea
fishing, go-karts, swimming in the ocean without supervision. We allowed some of these memories to happen
as they got older. They now know how
small the go-kart track is, know the peaceful floating ride in front of a
parachute tethered to a boat in the ocean.
When the door closed behind my son and his friend, control
of his memories shifted. He would be making
his own memories, memories that none of the rest of us would share. We knew that this was the first summer he wandered
independently every day, and that this was the first summer that he met kids
his own age in the ocean, on the boardwalk. On his own.
But they weren't sitting next to us on the beach. I don’t even
know their names, where they are from, who their parents are.
This was the first summer that many of my son’s memories of
our beach vacation were solely his to make; I had no say in any of them, had no
control of these things that will help make up his life. These memories are not mine.
This was the first summer that letting go of my son, my first-born
child, my first baby, became real to me.
The first summer.
*******
sniff...sniff...never thought of it that way...sniff
ReplyDeleteSorry to be the bearer of this very real reality. I so wish it weren't so.
DeleteOMG!! Can't we stop them from growing?! There must be a way. I'm having issues with mine being away for a week without me. This has never happened. It's always been me who was gone on the adventure...now it's her! I love that she's growing into this lovely young lady, but I hate that in this growing, she's growing away from me. :(
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Whoever told us that raising kids got easier as they got older is a liar. The older mine get, the more I want to lock them up forever.
DeleteBut not literally. You know what I mean. :)
I can't even....
ReplyDeleteThe making of memories on their own? That really gets me. I'm far from that still, but it's coming. It's LOOMING. Sigh.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. He's twelve. Tomorrow he'll be an adult. This is how quickly it goes.
DeleteI told you...ten years and you could be grandparents! Mom
ReplyDeleteOMG NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
DeleteI love your Mom's comment. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd please tell me I can stop this from happening.
I can't stop mine, but believe me, I've tried. It backfires - better to just let it happen.
DeleteMy Mom - she's a laugh a minute. :)
Brave, brave momma. I can't imagine how scary it was watching him walk away.
ReplyDeleteThank you - it was! As I was reminding him to take the money, the cell phone, and all of the stranger danger reminders, my internal crazy mommy was screaming "WAIT! DON'T LET HIM GO! YOU'LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN!!"
DeleteLuckily for everyone around, I sucked all that in. Again.