NEWS FROM THE FRONT

We are here safely, settled into our room at The Taj which is two blocks from Tay’s school. We are in a lovely room overlooking The Commons that is so packed with bags from Bed Bath And Beyond it looks like their warehouse. We climb over printers and pillows and bags groaning with linens to get to the bathroom.

Tay is still asleep and I’m waiting for coffee. Good hotels are to me what Tiffany’s was to Holly Golightly: I cannot be unhappy in them.

So yesterday, despite all my trepidation– while I can’t say it was the penultimate day of my life, and the big things are still ahead– was a good day in many ways.

It was a glorious day to fly and Jet Blue got us here in what I swear to god felt like twenty minutes. We had head winds (or something, I’m not aeronautically knowledgeable) and we arrived ahead of schedule. When they announced, “We are arriving in Logan National Airport.” Taylor and I looked at each other and beamed “It’s so close.”

She even said ‘It’s taken me longer to get downtown in a cab,”  which is true. Though I’ve never paid a hundred and fifty dollars in overweight luggage to take a cab. This was very comforting to both of us. Boston is close by. Phew. Worry number one – history.

Thanks to my friend and manager Richard Arlook who went to Emerson and has a daughter here– he got me in touch with Red and his gang who drive big vans and believe me, a big van we needed. Her suitcases filled the back, and what’s really amazing is that her closet at home is still full of clothes!

He brought us to the hotel where we dumped the endless bags and went straight to Bed Bath and Beyond where we picked up all the items purchased in New York and more. The place was swarming with college kids and their parents clutching lists and arguing about space. I have a bet that the shoe rack I picked out is the only one that will fit. We will know the answer by this afternoon. Best Buy was blessedly next-door, there we met up with her roommate and picked up the TV and printer. Things were moving smoothly, the van was filling up again.

Target was looming across the street. I do love a big box mall and I really like Target, we got all the rest of the stuff there and then came back here and a nice guy named Chad helped us cram it all in the room.
Taylor started getting nervous; this is a fairly large room and it’s in the five star Taj, the closet is huge and we only have her things, how on earth is this all going to fit into her dorm room with her roommate’s gear as well? Her mom and I were comparing notes on how much they each packed; how everything will fit is another mystery that will be solved later this afternoon.

Emotionally, yesterday I was in control and she started to understand what was really happening. Despite the fact it is closer than we thought, and despite the fact we have started mapping out how many days she will be home before Christmas, she is still going to be here without us. When she asked if we could all move to Boston I knew she was getting a little scared, which is totally normal and my guess is in two weeks, she will be adjusted and finding her way to all the people she knows who are here and happily making new friends and (I do hope) studying. But yesterday was Sunday of a holiday weekend and it all seemed kind of lonely and scary for someone who comes from a happy home.

We had to get out of the room as the bags were making me nervous, so we walked over and saw her dorm building and the school and it’s such a great part of town and it has all the familiar stores she has been surrounded by her whole life. So she found comfort in that.

The great thing is EXHALE, the gym I’m addicted to and she attends both with me and on her own,  has its Boston branch literally a block from her school. I took her in and she instantly felt at home. Thank you Fred and Elizabeth for making them all look so similar. The same workout wear hanging by the door, the same calming smell and the identical rooms she is used to working out in. It was a giant bit of home in a strange city – a familiar oasis where she can go and not only exercise but have a clean, private shower and blow her hair dry when she feels the need. So, okay,  “ Mommy fix-it” put down her credit card and she will put her student priced classes on that and we walked out and she felt much better. Exercise truly is the savior of life in so many ways.

I was really good and really strong and not weepy at all. I was the rock she needed and it helped that I felt like hey, I could come up here and stay at my favorite chain hotel and work out across the street and take her to dinner. I might even come up for a week to work on my book and write ten hours a day and only break for the gym and dinner. I might not, as she needs to adjust, but the possibilities were there and yesterday was a day that was so full of uncertainties that every possibility was a life raft.

We had a lovely dinner in the hotel and chatted like two girlfriends. This is the part so many of you with older girls talk about where it changes and is different yet in some ways better. She was happy to be with me, not checking her BB every ten seconds or counting the minutes to escape to a party.

And then, then came the savior of the day (besides the wonderful gym). I was worried about the night, of watching her sleep and thinking all the dramatic things I can think up – the last night I share a room with my baby and all the rest of it. Which isn’t true – but it could have felt like it.

I was worried we would both be cloaked in sadness; but then zooming in to save the night in the oddest of ways was The Serpent of Santa Barbara AKA my mother. She came riding into town not on her usual broomstick but on Taylor’s BlackBerry and oh, in full toxic form she saved the night. She might have even saved the next stage in my life. Clarity reigned at the time I needed it most. Sometimes the universe does send you exactly what you need.

She decided to contact Taylor, whom she has not seen in three years, after she “happened to be sent” my blog IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME. Thus knowing this was the night we were up here she decided she would add her touch of venom in the hopes of making a difficult day (which, sorry mom, we’re ok) worse. I won’t go into the entire email – as that is not what this blog is for; I’m not here to mom-bash nor do I have to validate my stories as anything I recount is my interpretation of my life.

Suffice it to say, there was a section of the email that said my grandparents had disowned me and my grandmother hated me so much she left me nothing. Well, wills are public record so anyone can go find out none of that is true.  And then dear ole grandma who has been there for nothing added, “So glad you got away on your own. No more of those horrible scenes with your mother calling you horrible names.” Gee, what a loving, considerate thing to say to a kid the night before she moves into her college dorm. That’s mom, always trying to make others feel better and lend a comforting voice of reason.

Those of you who have seen LUCKY DUCKS have often asked, “What happened with your mother?” Call this the tip of the iceberg.

Now, where she is getting her info about me calling her names and our fights and how lucky Taylor is to escape the likes of me????? I have a good idea, but as we say, mums the word on this one.

Do we fight? Sure. Find me a mother and daughter who don’t. And I’m not afraid to own it as I have put it on film.

Have I called her names? You bet I have. And at the time she deserved it. Has she called me names, said she wished I were dead? Absolutely– usually when I shut off her phone.

The other day, arm in arm we actually tried counting the times she said she wished I were dead and I said I wished she was never born, then we cracked up and bought some LULU LEMON workout pants.

That is what many families do, they fight and they make up, and raising teens is not easy as everyone knows. And fighting with kids is part of raising them.

And as Tay said last night, “You can really only yell at the people you know won’t walk away from you.”

So if I yelled to get my point across or yelled because she broke a house rule or was acting like a petulant jerk, I did. And if she yelled back in defense or because I crossed a boundary, which god knows I’m capable of , she did.

But as someone said to her the other day, your sadness at leaving home is a good thing: it means you have a place you love and will want to come back to.

So, what was so great about that email for me was:

A) Instead of being sad I was furious, an emotion I much prefer.

B) I understood once and for all that one of my biggest fears is not true. I am not my mother and Taylor is not me and Taylor is not my mother and I’ m no longer a child.

C) And this is something all kids need to know – just because your parents say it doesn’t make it true.

D) Because I had no choice but to walk away from my mother it does not mean Taylor will walk away from me.

E) And despite my mother always telling me how rotten I am, be it directly or through others, I’m not and I have the relationship I do with Taylor to prove it.

So thank you, Mom. Your intent yet again was to make me miserable but instead you made my night, perhaps my year.

Off to unpack….

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