“BYE HAVE FUN”

Last night was one of those nights when I felt  like the I’m ready for her to leave

Since she turned eighteen curfew has become a thing of the past. I tried to enforce a version of it but every time I did her response was to stay out until Diane Sawyer was heading to work.   Also in the name of self preservation I have to get used to the fact I won’t know what time she comes and gets in very soon so I have to wean myself while she is still around. Thus I’ve adapted this fake smile and a casual toss off  “Bye – Have Fun”  as she heads off into the New York night, all the while biting  my tongue as to not say —-  Where are you going? What time will you be home? Don’t drive with drunks. Be sure a boy puts you in a cab. Don’ t drink things you don’t open your self or get from a bartender. And I would appreciate a text from your last stop letting me know what time you will be home. Oh and don’t forget to wear a seat belt. “Bye- have fun” and my darling husband hands me a glass of Malbec. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

It usually works and by not being super intrusive or worrying mom and being  ”bye have fun” mom most nights she will hit her curfew or close to it.

But there are nights like last night when seeing the sunrise is her main goal.

Oddly, I can do something I swore I never could and for years could not; I can fall asleep. But in the same way I always wake up an hour before the alarm goes off the day I have a flight, I wake up at two-thirty on the dot and am catapulted out of bed and into her room hoping to find her clothes on the floor and her lumpiness under the quilt. If she’s not there I go back into the ring with my nature and refrain from calling instead I trundle back to bed where miraculously I fall back to sleep until exactly three-thirty. When I wake up and go through the same routine. I recheck and if she s not there by three forty-five I can no longer keep the lid on my imagination or my nature, I go through every possible grizzly scenario while I text her and if she doesn’t respond, the scenarios get even grizzlier and I stop texting and start calling. The whole time I’m doing this I’m conducting a conversation with myself how my days of doing this are numbered why don’t I just go back to sleep. But I can’t I just can’t rest if she’s not home or I don’t know where she is. This is MOM DNA. I don’t understand how people avoid it.

My friend the powerhouse Jane Freidman who ran Harper Collins for years told me yow she spent three years hanging out her window at four am waiting for a cab containing her son to turn the corner and stop in front of her building. This is a woman who could go mano a mano with Rupert Murdoch but was undone by a son who was out too late and incommunicado

Last night we had one of those nights.  By the time she responded I had envisioned her under a truck or in one being hauled across the border into white slavery. Which border I’m not sure as we live in NY and there is not much trafficking between New York and New Jersey but at four am a mom’s  imagination can do amazing things.

By the time she responded her phone was dying.  Why is it when they are supposed to contact you or are late the phone is ALWAYS dying,  but if they are fighting with a boyfriend it can go on for eighteen hours at a stretch?

She used excuse #23 I fell asleep at Risa’s which is different than excuse #45 Katherine and I were watching all the seasons of 30 ROCK. Or the excuse she uses when alcohol affects her creativity and she resorts to excuse # 3 – AKA the truth “ havng fun y do u care?”

After she has assured me she will be right home it’s after four and going back to sleep is impossible. I haven’t been this sleep deprived since she was an infant.

At that moment idea of not having to go through this night after night next year seems very appealing and perhaps part of the universal plan that makes them behave this way so you won’t miss them as much.

But inevitably within the hour I hear her heels clickety click to her room. She yells I’m home and I curl back under the covers too relived and tired to be mad and very grateful, oh so grateful know she is safe.

I honestly don’t know how  how I will handle it next year when it’s Saturday night and she is two hundred miles away and I can’t call or text when I’m worried and the night or morning won’t end with the melody of her stilettos .

People tell me you get used to it. Out of sight out of mind at least when you’re sleeping. We’ll find out.

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