writing

Documenting History, Personally

/ jadorgan / 5 Comments

When I was a little girl in the early 1970s, I picked up a diary one day while at the bookstore with my mom. I chose that particular one because the cover had pink, fluffy fur, and it came with the requisite lock and accompanying key. After all, by the age of ten, I had deep inner thoughts that I needed to safeguard from my teenage brothers and, most importantly, my mother.

Sitting cross-legged on my canopy bed, I ended each day by pouring my profound musings onto those pre-lined pages. Mainly, I liked to gossip. I recorded all of the happenings at school and of the neighborhood kids. I kept running observations of who said what about whom, which boy I thought was cute, who started the fight on the playground and who won. As I got older, each day’s entry got longer as life became more complicated. I needed to comment on Lori’s new shade of eyeshadow or Lynn’s cool hip-hugger jeans or that Tammy played her new 45 “Beach Baby” a gazillion times or that Jackie stayed overnight at my house. These seemingly trite happenings were big to a young girl.

I’ve long since lost that diary, but even over forty years later, I remember what an essential part of my daily life it was. When my children were in elementary school, journaling was woven into the culture of their Quaker education. They learned to be still with their inner thoughts and record what was on their minds, even during extracurricular outings. I grew to understand the importance that the act of journaling provides for the individual. It allows reflection of the day’s happenings and the opportunity to put those thoughts in order. It is meditative — a time to force quiet into a busy world. And, it has the potential someday to be a glimpse into a way of life that expands past the historical name/date/place recorded in textbooks.

When my mother passed away in 2005, I was in charge of cleaning out her house. After I’d weeded through the usual piles of clothes, shoes, jewelry, and collectibles, I began to uncover the real valuables. Seemingly countless photos from every branch, limb, and twig on my family tree. Earnest correspondences from mothers to sons, daughters to fathers. Ardent love letters chronicling the courtship of my maternal great-grandparents. Deeds, documents, and journals. These were what interested me. These were irreplaceable. I had a veritable trove of history – specific to my family, yes, but also a view of society through the generations, dating back to the Civil War.

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John Pell Corsa, my 3rd great-grandfather, was born in 1830 in New York. His daughter, Jeanettie, was seven months old when he enlisted in the army and was sent to Fort Pulaski in Georgia. John would never see her again as he perished of an illness that spread through the encampment. After his death, he might have been reduced to name/date/place (John Pell Corsa/b. 1830, New York/d. 1862, Georgia) by this point in the 21st century, except that John wrote home regularly to his young wife while he was in the war. I have every one of those letters. They were filled with details of daily chores, military exercises, and the new friends he had made in his unit. More importantly, they narrated his state of mind. Early letters were filled with hope — “when I come home” and “give the baby a kiss for me.” As the months passed, his tone became more resigned as he reported on the death of yet another friend.

With those letters, I also have the only surviving portrait of my great-great-great-grandfather. Hand drawn with charcoal and pencil, it captured a serious young man with light eyes and a goatee, slicked-back dark hair, and a formal three-piece suit. The picture and letters from this man born nearly two hundred years ago were stored carefully in a leather folio that protected them through the decades so, by the time they made their way into my possession, they remained in near pristine condition. The heartfelt words and detailed portrait have immortalized John Pell Corsa/b. 1830, New York/d. 1862, Georgia as a three-dimensional, flesh and blood husband, father, and Civil War soldier.

As I sifted through the treasures that had remained buried in my parents’ home for fifty years, I found the most meaningful of all. Written in his recognizable handwriting were stacks of journals that my father had kept from his teenage years through his service in the army. I poured over them, riveted by words that came from his innermost soul. I learned that his lifelong passion for baseball began with the birth of Little League Baseball in his hometown of Williamsport, PA. Every statistic of every game was meticulously recorded, including every major league game he could tune in on his family radio. I learned about his parents and brother as viewed through his boyhood lens. I felt his frustration in wanting to leave behind the industrial town in which he grew up in search of higher education. From a poor, working-class family, his only route would be military service then college on the GI Bill. I read how he joined the army, his excitement of being stationed in Panama, and the camaraderie with his unit. I was scandalized to learn about the 19-year-old boy, who would later become my father, flirting with and dating the local girls.

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Dad passed away in 1989 and, although he will be alive as long as my brothers and I are, he could quickly fade into name/date/place when we’re gone. Those journals, though, will be passed to my children and niece who may have never known the man while he was alive but will cherish the words of the boy who became their grandfather.

Throughout my life, I’ve intuitively turned to writing as a means of expressing myself. In recent years, I’ve learned how valuable that expression is in reflecting and recording the humanity behind basic facts. As I write this piece, the world is in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. No one knows what to expect when we come out on the other side of it. History will record the name/date/place of it all, but what about the human story? The comparison to this being like a world war isn’t lost on me, and I am reminded of how Anne Frank’s detailed and stark writing while in hiding from the Nazis brought a singular personal perspective to the Holocaust. Movies have been made, stories have been written, but it is her diary that remains the centerpiece of the Jewish experience from 1942 to 1944. With this in mind, I started my own journal for the first time since that pink fuzzy diary I had in 1970. It is a place for me to talk about my daily life – from the routine and ordinary to my worries and fears. My children are living in the epicenter of the crisis – New York City. What if they get sick? My husband’s business is mostly shut down – what will this mean to his employees and us financially? My cousin’s husband suspects he has the virus, but no tests are available to know for sure. He’ll likely be okay, but will others I know be affected? A week from now; a month from now. These are the types of questions that keep me up at night. Multiply this by millions of people, and we are all living through this frightening time with similar concerns.

Other friends have joined me in writing down their thoughts. I know poets who are putting their feelings into verse. An artist friend is releasing her anxiety through her paintings. On the internet, creativity is exploding through videos. Worldwide, drones are photographing empty streets in the most popular tourist destinations. Undoubtedly, people across the country and around the world are keeping personal records of their own experiences. My journal is just one tiny piece in this collective effort to record the history we are now living. Our ordeals will live more richly than merely the names/dates/places that will be relegated to the textbooks, because this is how those who came before us did it, too.

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To Dream the Impossible Lottery Dream

/ jadorgan / Leave a comment

I won the lottery. The 200-million-dollar lottery, to be exact. After the inevitable taxes, the gifts to friends, and trusts established for family, there was still an obscene amount of money left. Too much for my husband and me to spend in our lifetime. So, I purchased thousands of acres of property and established an animal sanctuary.

There were dozens of barns and quarters for everyone from retired racehorses and rescued cows to elderly dogs and feral cats. Pigs had their own yard fenced off from their neighboring goats and sheep, complete with troughs and mud pits in which to luxuriate on sweltering summer days. An alpaca might stroll past chicken coups while peacocks kept dozens of watchful eyes on the operation. A venture of this magnitude required a sizeable staff, including three veterinarians, groundskeepers, a business manager, and multiple caretakers to feed, groom, and oversee the comfort of the residents. High school and college students could earn credit by mucking stables and snuggling lambs.

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This lifelong dream of mine was exactly that…a dream. In 1986, the dream was so vivid that, upon waking, I could recall minute details and conjure up sensory cues as specific as the annoyance of the buzzing flies and the pervasive aroma of manure. I could see the rolling pastures with happily grazing animals who would peacefully live out their lives under my indulgent care.

The following morning, I strutted right into my boss’s office at the newspaper where I worked. “I won’t be in tomorrow,” I informed him. “Why not?” he asked. “Because I’m winning the 200-million-dollar lottery and starting an animal sanctuary.” With that, we shared uproarious laughter. It wasn’t only because of the confidence in my assertion. It was because, in 1986, lottery jackpots topped out somewhere around the 10-million-dollar range. The very thought of a 200-million-dollar prize was unimaginable.

Through the decades, as the lotteries grew, I never forgot about that dream. I began scouting properties that could accommodate the number of animals I intended to rescue. I convinced my niece that, once up and operational, I wanted her to manage the overall business. Now, every time the Mega Millions or Powerball creeps toward that 200-million mark, my husband, or son, or daughter, calls to remind me to buy tickets. I firmly believe that, since it was my vision, it has to be my purchase.

A pipedream, you say? Superstition? I don’t think so. I was raised to believe in the supernatural – unexplained events and a connection to the otherworldly. How many times have I started humming a song that suddenly popped into my head, just to immediately find it blaring from the radio? Countless. I’ve often been viewed as a good luck charm at casinos as my intuition during Blackjack is unparalleled. I’ve bought dinners – paid for vacations – because my gut has told me when to double down and when to stand. Or, what about when a long-lost friend calls me for the first time in ages to find my lack of surprise disconcerting? After all, I’d had a “hunch” I’d be hearing from her.

I know, I know. You want to call these “coincidences.” Occasional nudges from the universe that aren’t much more than a fluke. I beg to differ. My mother was always surrounded by tarot card readers, astrologists, and mystics so, growing up, I took for granted her psychic abilities. I never thought to question her when she adamantly professed that spirits of her loved ones had visited her through her life. I grew up assuming that everybody believed in ghosts. Imagine my dismay the first time a classmate said, “There’s no such thing as ghosts.” Had Mom lied? Couldn’t be! Obviously, my peers were simply uninformed. I saw firsthand when Mom and her sister received profound answers to the questions they asked of the Ouija board. Even after my mother died, her ability to communicate across the life/death threshold continued when she contacted my aunt. Imagine my aunt’s shock when she was playing Farmville on her computer and an instant message from Mom’s account popped up declaring, “I’m flying through the stars!”

I’d like to think I’ve inherited intuitive sensitivities. I’m in awe of those who have mastered this skill. I’ve dropped a hefty amount of money visiting professional mediums, from locals to the esteemed John Edward. While I’ve never received a personal message, I’ve watched in amazement as those around me dissolved into tears at a meaningful word from a loved one. After my beloved dog Clifford died, my depression drove me to reach out to Sonya Fitzpatrick, the famed pet psychic from Animal Planet. I was a tad skeptical that my dog would be able to speak with a person. By phone, Sonya described details of my house that would have been difficult to guess. A room with a wooden floor and rug covering part of it made Clifford nervous; he was afraid he would slip and hurt his painful leg. She said Clifford had appreciated when, near the end, I would lie on the ground with him and give him pieces of ice. I was confused, though, when she went into great detail about the blue blanket that I always covered him with at night. His blanket was a multi-colored quilt. When my daughter came home from school and I mentioned this inaccuracy, she went to the blanket and turned it over. The back was solid blue. My skepticism vanished.

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So, scoff all you want as I eagerly check to see which lottery is close to the 200 million mark. If you want to get in on the action, though, you’ll need to let me buy the tickets. Since it was my dream, I have to be the one who actually makes the purchase. Then, join me on my animal sanctuary where all residents live comfortably and peacefully. Where rescued horses and lambs and calves and rams and puppies and piglets play from dawn to dusk. Where bluebirds sing joyfully as they drape me in the pink gown that they helped create with the household mice. Where unicorns frolic in vast meadows under a hundred perfect rainbows. Fantasy, you say? I call it a prophecy.

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The Last Great Release

/ jadorgan / 4 Comments

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When I was a kid, there was a stream running through the woods behind my neighborhood. My two older brothers would spend summers playing in those woods, building forts with fallen twigs and creating dams to redirect the water flow. Of course, I would tag along to help. And, by “help,” I mean busting my ass on a rock within fifteen minutes of the adventure and having to be carried home. My brothers distracted me from my self-sabotage by showing me the tiny tadpoles that squirmed in the gentle current and taught me about their development into adult frogs.

Those memories and my lifelong appreciation for nature may be what saved me this summer. My current home improvement project, scheduled to take two weeks but now going on eight, would have sent most people into a violent rage. We’ve had all the concrete around the pool, our basement entrance, and our deck ripped up and hoisted into three dumpsters. May turned into June and, because of weather delays, dragged into July. Through weeklong rainstorms and brutal heatwaves, the contractors hit numerous obstacles and countless setbacks.

Amidst the chaos and the filth, my pool lay waiting. While I bitched to my husband and complained to the masons, last year’s water remained untouched in the deep end. Since the pool could not get its new liner and filter until the other work was done, algae began to grow. Then, they came.

The frogs.

I grew increasingly aware of the chirping. Each night, they became louder and louder, competing to show off their machismo to the ladies. I waded through the mud and the unevenness of my construction site to commune with the nature happening in my very own backyard. I steered clear of the occasional snake; I mourned the two baby bunnies that my dog, Lula, thought were toys; I appreciated the bats that had moved into the house we made for them as I was seldom bothered by mosquitoes. But I loved the music of the frogs conjuring up nostalgia from my childhood adventures with my brothers or my idyllic summers spent in rural Massachusetts.

Then, one night, my husband and I arrived home to discover the melody had become a symphony of croaking. We grabbed a flashlight and shone it around the pool area, expecting to find a mob of amphibious types staring at us with those bulging eyes. Instead, I found one lone pair of frogs. And, they were doing it. Froggy style!

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Now, I’m generally too private to discuss my sex life but, let me tell you, lying in bed, night after night, listening to them playing dirty leapfrog, I admit to being a little envious. I’d heard that manly warbling and witnessed his triumph at having gotten the girl. Now, he was just showing off. For hours!

As the pool algae flourished, so did the eggs from the fornicating frogs. Next came the tadpoles. I mean thousands of tadpoles! My mother instincts kicked in as I watched those slimy heads with tails swimming happily in the putrefying water. My new babies. I tried to give each one a name, but after mistaking Becca for Tommy too many times, I decided they were all named Sasha.  I began taking pictures of them and telling my friends about the ecosystem I was now in charge of in my very own backyard. “Maybe I’ll just leave the pool as a huge pond,” I joked.

Until Pool Guy came by to check on the masons’ progress and let me know they’d be taking out the old liner in preparation for the work on the pool. “We’ll throw some bleach in,” he said, “then we can get started.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, reality settling around me. “The bleach will kill the tadpoles!”

He laughed. “Well, is it a pool or a pond? If it’s a pool, they have to go.”

“No bleach,” I told him. “How long until you need to pump out the remaining water?”

“A week.”

“Then, I have enough time to Save The Tadpoles!”

I knew I could never get every last one of them. But I could do my best to save as many as possible. So, the process began. For hours every night, my husband and I took turns with the pool net and scooped. We dumped our haul into a large pot and went back for more. Once we couldn’t fit any more into the pot, we’d take them to the nearby stream and release them into their new home.

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It became a game to us – a quest. ‘Save The Tadpoles’ was our rallying cry. The masons worked during the day; we scooped during the evening. At first, it seemed futile. Finally, the horde began to thin. We got hundreds of tadpoles a night. We rescued a few dozen full-fledged frogs, and many, many that were at various stages in-between with legs and a tail.

Our friends and family learned what our immediate priority was. “Do you want to go to dinner tonight?” “No, we have to scoop tadpoles.” “Can you come to visit me this weekend?” “Sorry. Tadpoles.” They began to pitch in, eagerly taking the rescues to populate streams closer to their own homes.

At last, the day came for Pool Guy to throw in his pump and drain all remaining water. At 7 AM, I stood at the edge of the pool and calculated. There were still some stragglers bobbing around the edges. Could I get any more before the remaining water was removed? I could sure try! ‘No Tadpole Left Behind’ became my new cry. I scooped. Through the remaining muck and silt, I thrust in the netted pole and rejoiced at every silvery body I caught. They evaded me, but I persisted. With sweat dripping in the 90° morning, I was determined to save as many as possible.

Triumphantly, I took that stockpot with upwards of another 350 tadpoles, plus eight tiny frogs, and placed it gently in the passenger seat of my car. We drove to the nearby stream, and I hiked the distance from the street through the woods. I needed to get close to the water, right up to the edge. Unlike the frogs I released there with some regularity who could hop the rest of the way, these little guys needed to go right into the water. And, that’s what we did. As I stepped to the edge of the creek, the ground gave way beneath me and in I went, stockpot and all. Somehow, I managed to keep my charges upright as I landed knee-deep in mud and busted my ass on a rock. I dropped the lid and released them into the water. Little frogs hopped off, and big-headed tadpoles wriggled into their new home.

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As I extracted myself from the quicksand-like suction of the sludge, I eyed the piles of beer bottles and cans that lay strewn around the woods. Instead of allowing someone else’s casual disregard of the environment ruin my celebratory mood, I picked up my stockpot, stomped off as much mud from my feet as I could, and began cramming that trash into my pot to take home for recycling. Sighing with satisfaction, I looked one more time toward the last great release. A snowy egret was soaring low above the surface of the stream.

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I Got A Facial

/ jadorgan / 4 Comments

It’s no secret that I’m easy prey to all the latest fads for beating back the rapidly turning pages on life’s calendar. I wish I had the confidence of the beautiful Jamie Lee Curtis and Helen Mirren who gracefully embrace the passing of time, but I come from the land of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Here, we embrace each other with a critical eye and our greetings, instead of “How are you?” begin with “You look great!”

I was an early admirer of Jack LaLanne, following him on television as I touched my toes and did jumping jacks. I was a devotee of Jane Fonda, donning my shiny spandex leotards and sweating to her high-paced aerobics workouts on VHS. I’ve powerwalked; I’ve kept pace with Denise Austin through the decades; I’ve Jazzercized; I’ve joined gyms and quit gyms; I’ve taken step classes and spin classes and cardio funk classes and yoga classes and Zumba classes. I bought Jillian Michaels’ Body Revolution and worked myself into a (short-lived) size 4. I’ve fought gravity every inch of the way with ab crunches and pumping iron.

Alas, the face and body cream industry has also benefited from my insecurities…and my gullibility. Hydrate and moisturize, rinse and repeat. By this age, I’ve spent enough money on slathering products for my face and neck that my husband and I could have retired years ago. I’ve needed the age-appropriate cleansers, toners, eye creams, daytime moisturizers, nighttime moisturizers, acne treatments for “mature” skin (something’s wrong with that reality). Twelve years ago, I was a chaperone for my daughter’s dance group on a trip to Kentucky. Another little girl stayed with us in our hotel room and marveled at my case filled with lotions and potions – “more than Harry Potter has!” – she exclaimed. That was a proud moment for me.

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My insomnia has permitted me to remain updated on trends in exfoliants, glycolic acid, and retinol as the late-night infomercials readily educate me. I’ve explored Botox and fillers, but the idea of injecting foreign substances into my face freaks me out. I’ve bought home microdermabrasion kits and ultrasound devices that are supposed to cause my sagging facial muscles to contract, thereby restoring them to my early twenties’ firmness. How about DNA-based skincare? Should I explore the gluten-free products? Kim Kardashian informed me that a vampire facial is what I want. How about a gold facial because, I mean really, I haven’t wasted enough money, yet? Fermentation? Radiofrequency? Mesotherapy? Do I need these?

With the slackening jawline and turkey jiggly thing developing under my chin, I’ve pondered a partial facelift. But, when does it stop? I’ve heard I could become addicted to surgery. Would my nipped and tucked face look fresh and youthful, or just nipped and tucked on my wrinkly, rickety body sitting in the poor house beside my long-suffering husband?

Just as I resigned myself to a lifetime of demanding that candid pictures of me were never posted on social media…just as I learned to stop gasping in horror when my phone camera accidentally swiveled to selfie mode, accentuating the multitude of chins and parenthesis-shaped lines around my mouth, Groupon emailed me the answer. The newest and the latest. A non-surgical approach guaranteed to give me the same results as a facelift. As I said…gullible.

And, to add excitement to the thrill, I could also get liposuction results with a non-surgical body procedure. Why wouldn’t I want to make my love handles disappear? Smooth the bulge under my belly button? These two miracle treatments, for face and body, were on special for about $150. What a bargain! I signed right up.

I kissed my husband goodbye the morning of my appointment, surreptitiously making sure he had a good look at my face and figure before I left. I didn’t tell him of my big plans so I could surprise him when I got home. I drove the 45 minutes to the elite spa that offered the Groupon deal and nervously walked into the foyer. I was greeted by a woman who seemed unaware of who I was and why I was there. After a quick conversation, she became animated. Later it would become clear to me that her brief assessment led her to think of me as an easy target.

Communication was not Callie’s strong suit. She was pleasant enough but didn’t understand with whom she was dealing. I needed to know exactly what she was doing. I needed to know how it was going to feel before she ever lay an instrument on me. I needed to know that her lotions and potions were sterile and that the equipment was cleaned after each client. I kept asking for information, and she kept giving me whispered abbreviated answers. I’m not a spa expert so I may not have been aware of some protocol demanding silence. Was I supposed to be quiet or just not question the specialist?

Plus, Callie should have warned me – really, she should have – before she assaulted me with the EXIMIA machine. I’d read that this device employs not one, but two state-of-the-art solutions to my cellulite accumulation. I did my research. While I’m not particularly scientific-minded, I understood the concept of lift and suck. This miraculous Italian contraption would do exactly that to my cellulite in a simple, painless, easy session. After all, I’d paid $150 to be made over in just one visit. Once Callie had applied the lotions needed for the machine to glide over me, a loud banging and sizzling noise startled me into a near panic. She needed two hands to control the gadget as it proceeded to do what I can only describe as trying to eat me alive. It had powerful jaws that chomped and crunched across my abdomen and hips. All while paralyzing me with its commotion.

“Is it supposed to sound like that?” I managed to choke out between gasps for air.

“Yes, yes!” Callie told me with a bright tone. “It’s doing its job. You’ll see a difference in just one day.”

Oh. I forgot to mention Callie insisted on taking photos of me with my phone, full body and close-up of the face, before starting any of these treatments. She wanted to celebrate with me the results when comparing before/after pictures. You already know how I feel about pictures of myself so you can imagine how excited I was by this little exercise.

When she finally released me from the table, Callie took that after-picture but saucily informed me that I couldn’t look until after she’d worked on my face. She wanted to save it for the Big Reveal. Off we went to the facial room which had a smaller version of the body machine I’d just escaped. I knew what to expect this time, though, so braced myself for having my face eaten. Maybe the pressure was less; maybe I was better prepared. As it turned out, I had to control my laughter because that machine tickled as its little mouth gently chewed up and down my cheeks.

Callie was shocked that, at my advanced age, I’d never had a facial. She kept asking me, “Really? Never?” as if that would change history. It was a rather pleasant step-by-step process of cleaning my face, applying lotions and potions, wiping off the lotions and potions, the EXIMIA device nibbling on my face, massaging away the tension, and on. I was relaxed, thinking this was definitely worth my Groupon special rate when Callie pulled out a new device. She applied a thin liquid to my face and began swirling a three-pronged electric current wand all over, from my neck to my jowls, up my cheeks to my forehead.

“I’ll turn it up as high as you can tolerate it,” she told me. “The higher the setting, the better the results.”

“Okay,” I said. I was game. I wanted to see the results. She’d taken the before-pictures, after all, and I wanted to bask in the glow of my freshly treated skin in the after-pictures.

“Just a tingle,” Callie assured me. “You’ll feel a tingle.”

I felt a tingle. Not bad. I couldn’t wait to see the toned muscles, the youthful radiance. As the liquid on my face was absorbed and swept away with Callie’s motions, the tingling grew stronger. Suddenly, it felt as if someone had applied a live wire directly to my face, and my arms and legs began to convulse.

“Stop! It’s burning!” I said.

“Shhh! Not burning. Tingling,” she assured me.

“Burning!” I yelled, swiping the torture device away from me.

“Hm.” Callie eyed me skeptically. “Maybe I didn’t give you enough lotion.”

“Ya think?” I was sitting upright by then, fingering the skin on my forehead, feeling for blisters. Clicking her tongue at me, she lay me back down and applied a hydrating collagen mask to my face.

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Callie took those after-pictures. I saw no difference. Not on my stubborn love handles, not around my jawline. My online research had promised me that I’d see a noticeable improvement after one treatment. But Callie informed me that I needed at least six treatments of each to see real results. At full price, I was looking at close to $2600.

“I’ll give you the package rate,” Callie whispered conspiratorially. “You’ll get 20% off.”

Callie may have fancied herself a good saleswoman, but I’d show her that I wasn’t someone to be trifled with. While I had not had the best experience with my first body treatment and facial, a 20% off hook gave me pause. I scratched the body treatments from her proposal and arranged a dubious look on my face as I eyeballed the remainder. She countered with an additional 5% off a package of six facials. I hedged and mulled. Our eyes met, each sizing up the other. I told her that if she would trim another 5% off the facials, I’d do it. She agreed, and I wrote her a big fat check. She grinned as I walked out, a hint of smugness on her lips, but I assured myself that, while I may be gullible, I’d shown her that I’m no sucker.

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The Go-To Gal

/ jadorgan / 1 Comment

Guest post

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The requests began to sound all too familiar.

“Mom, I need my (insert item here) washed, and I don’t have time to throw in a load, can you throw it in?”

Or, “I don’t have time to stop at the cleaners before work, can you grab my dry cleaning?”

Or, “Mommy, I don’t have time to drive to UPS, and it has to be mailed today, can you drop it for me?”

Why is it when young adult children return home for a period of time from college or their independent lives, that they fall into the pattern of having Mom do their bidding?

I am reflecting on this as I get ready for another re-entry. Winter is coming and that means the long holiday break is imminent. Don’t get me wrong. I love to have my family under one roof, but I am also dreading the backslide — the people we become when we get back into familiar roles.

A few years ago, when I first became an empty-nester, I remembered that I could not wait to have my kids home to “mom” them again. I made favorite dinners and cleaned their rooms. I couldn’t break the habit of over-loving.

The second time I welcomed my brood home, something had changed. I had changed. I gained a sort of acceptance about the way my life without children had progressed. I reinvented my career and began freelance writing from home. It had always been a dream of mine, and since the house was empty, I dived into my new line of work without the distraction of the family around.

When my daughters came back into the fold, I noticed something. I guess adulting was harder on them their sophomore year because my 20-year-old children began to rely on me just as they did before they were in college. When I saw the laundry pile up, I figured I would help them out and throw in a load or two. I said to myself, they were both working full-time summer jobs and were so busy. But, “helping out” really meant that I assumed a chore that they were doing independently for the past two years. While away at school, the girls did their laundry when they needed something to be washed. Once home, instead of doing it weekly (like I thought they should) they just let it pile up. That made me nuts, so I dutifully picked up clothes off the floor and threw them in the washer. I even folded their stacks in neat piles and placed them on their beds.

I began to feel resentful. I asked myself, did my daughters think that I suddenly had all the time in the world to do the chores they couldn’t work into their schedules? Did they believe that mom is working from home, so she has the time to run to the cleaners, the market, the department store, or the pharmacy? Did they think, I’ll just ask her instead of planning to take care of these things on my own time? I started to feel like a personal Gal Friday.

I can’t blame them if they did think that way. I did all of these things when I worked outside of the home. Even with my full-time job, I prepared dinner, unless I was too exhausted and ordered take out. On Saturdays, I would take the time to food shop and run errands so my work week would be less hectic. Inevitably, no matter how much I planned, there were times when I would dash home from work, make dinner and find out that we had to go to the store for something needed for that night’s homework, project, or presentation. When I was working outside of the home, my children were younger, and I believed that it was just part of my duty as a mom. The kids are older now and self-sufficient, and yet we seem to have fallen back on our familiar routines.

I guess it dawned on me when a friend invited me to grab a coffee last summer. I was dashing around trying to get all the errands done to meet up with her on time. I was late. We started comparing our hectic mornings, and to my surprise, hers was just as frenzied as mine!

“Is it me?” I asked. “Why does my family feel like they can load their responsibilities on me?” She and I compared notes, and we both had an “AHA” moment. We were part of the problem. We were allowing our kids (and, to some extent, our spouses) to let us carry the load for them. In turn, I was giving them permission to eat up the precious time in my day and lose focus on my work. I had applied for, and gotten the job as, the “Go-to Gal.” Was I forever doomed to be caught in this endless cycle becoming a momager every time they returned? So that got me thinking that something or someone had to change.

As I prepare for the return of the flock to the nest, I know that the best way to handle re-entry is to discuss my expectations and theirs. I can’t blame them entirely, as I am guilty of taking on a lot of the work. I want them to feel happy about being home, but I also want to promote a discussion about us falling into our familiar habits. I want to set boundaries on my time. I still want to be helpful, but I want to make the point that they can’t expect that I will be able to drop everything and do whatever they need.

I will have to remind my young adults that they need to make their own doctors’ appointments or any other appointment from now on. They have to be the keepers of their calendars and their wardrobe supply (including dry cleaning runs). I will have to respect that laundry will be washed on their timeline and not mine. And, any holiday returns or packages need to be mailed back by the receiver of said package.

Many of the women I surround myself with have similar stories. Parenting nearly adult children is hard for all of us. It can be hard to let go. At times, I wish I had a “Go-to Gal or Guy” to perform all the mundane tasks that take up my daily life, but alas, I don’t have a personal assistant. We all have to manage our precious time, and that takes forethought and planning. When you reach young adulthood, you have to assume your own responsibilities. You don’t get to pick and choose which ones you feel like doing; you have to do them all. It is mommy guilt that keeps us on the hamster wheel out of some desire to help or feel needed. My children will still love me even if I don’t do all their chores. I need to check that guilt off my already too long to-do list, and hand in my resignation as the “Go-to Gal.”

— Jeanine Consoli, travel writer, photographer, foodie. https://jconstravels.com/