How you sit when you have to tell your parents moving across the country:
So, if you want to ask anybody about survival, ask a 24 year old fresh out of graduate school. Those at an age of intellect, able understand the world around them as they deliberately step into a new world and new life; a new job, a new city, a new citizen. That novice is leaving nurturing graduate school for the curious world. From times that they were cradled by schedules and predictable costs of living, with advisors telling them how to live their life, text books, to tell them what they should be thinking about, and a group of friends, all in the same boat.
How can I? The youngest of my family, be out on my own with no support and begin as a support to others.
This is what I thought of as I sat on my bed one sunny spring Saturday in Nashville. My computer on my lap, I wait for my Skype to ring to recite a lukewarm version of the forethought doubts to my parents in St. Louis. My always reliable, 9:00 pick up, scheduled Starbucks Soy Chai Latte at my left, my iPhone at my right, body tucked under my blanket made from club and team Tshirts of an overachieving highschool teen, two pillows behind my back, I’m perfectly prepared. I quickly review my financial pie charts, my pro and con list ranked by points (relationships 5 points, job 4 points, location perks, 3 points, etc etc), all combinations of job offers and potential apartments to have a grasp on my financial future, I’m set and ready to go.
Lets be honest, it takes practice to be this insanely OCD. I like to refer to mine as a learned and acquired tool to living. Life as the youngest and most scatterbrained of a high achieving family, I had to learn to be rigid and methodic in my actions or I would fall into a self-loathing depression for days for having missteped the plan. This would usually look like a sweatpant wearing, fast food eating, sleeping, reality tv-ed version of my usual pretty put together, marathon running, yogic, semi-vegetarian, academic self.
And here I was, on the tail end of my second year of graduate school, with a plea to my parents to have faith in their daughter embarking on yet another new city and another new experience. Leaving graduate school, is finally and knowingly, dare I say conscientiously stepping out into adulthood, two years too late. In the minority of my college friends, I stayed the extra laps, to cool down before actually letting go of the leash extended by my parents and teachers. My life experiences were beginning to be less relatable to that of my friends and gaps began to exist between souls that I thought I would always consider the best. They were experiencing this undefinable secret called adulthood. I just didn’t get it yet and I didn’t know what it was I didn’t get. But I understood school, so I stayed a bit.
Graduate school was a time where I took the baby steps to be a true adult. Move to a new city, but still in the school environment, therefore making friends would be easy. I got a scholarship working as an intern, getting a small monthly stipend on which to live, Yet my parents were still there in case my car had trouble, I overspent, or lets be honest, they still paid my rent at a beautiful apartment complex downtown. The work was hard, but the living was easy. I could focus everything on my academic inspirations (my first love) and spend no energy fretting about money or fear of what could happen in the next month because I already knew I had 4 papers due, 2 tests, and a trip to see Pat scheduled in April. My instability was at a minimum.
This conversation with my parents will define what will become of the next years of my life. Will I go home, save money by living at my parents, reconnect with my old college friends that stayed local, and teach special education at a public school that I used to play soccer against down the street? Will I move north to Wilmington, Delware to live closer to my boyfriend of 2 years, not knowing anyone, blindly accepting a job at a public self-contained school that looks as if its falling apart? Will I stay in Nashville, nuturing the wonderful friendships that only just began, working in an urban public middle school downtown, still being away from my family and Pat? Or will I accept my admittance into Harvard’s doctorate program, continue my stable life and ignorance of adulthood, yet propelling my carefully planned career in educational research or politics (I really don’t know yet, but I’ll figure out which route to take when I get there)? This is what we will decide.
That old fashioned, 80’s, Zach Morris, telephone ring fills my room yet I click the accept button on my computer screen to see my Mom and Dad’s Jetson connection pop-up.
“Hi,” I say in the only way I’ve ever said hi to a member of my family, with a tone that is 1/3 squealy like that to a dog, 1/3 inquiry, 1/3 excitement.
“Hey baby girl,” my mom begins. She continues with a cocked head. “How’s it going?”
“Its going good. Things are good. Its beautiful here. Hows it up in St. Louis?”
“It’s nice, just beginning to warm up, Dad and I were out in the yard today,”
“That’s nice. Great.” I stop, clear that there is only one reason for our call today. My loving yet business minded father breaks it down.
“Well, baby girl, I, uh, understand, that we’ve got some talking to do. We need to talk about what you are going to do next.”
This is not unusual for me. After compiling every possible outcome, I consult my parents on every decision and wait for their immense and undoubted agreement on the choice that I make. If they do not perform a convicing enough performance on my pronouncement, I will fret for weeks about making a wrong choice, thinking that they wanted me to do something different. That’s still a lot of support for a 24 year old. But for my whole life, what do you think about this outfit? What do you think of my boyfriend Andy? What do you think about this movie, should I rent it? could never be answered on my own without approval from atleast 2 members of my family. I could run my questions by Mom and Dad, Julie and Dad, Mom and Mark. If I could get two of them to agree that it was a good choice, I was golden. I had figured out a way to full proof always staying on the “right path.”
Months of Arbys and MTV’s The Hills went by as I campaigned my heart out in sweats over the phone to various family members on my decision to date my boyfriend Pat long distance. After a movie-like summer fling, Pat was moving from his undergraduate city of Nashville back to his hometown outside of Philadelphia. Our time together in Tennesse was short but it was obvious to us, as the two partys involved that it was something different and special and must continue, taking on the bulk of the relationship over Skype, phone, instant message, text, email, packages, and Southwest Airlines. Needing to know all the facts, until my family met this prince, I’m sure they all thought I was dating a criminal. An hour after finally meeting the mystery man, my family accepted Pat’s considerate and gentleman ways with open arms yet not fully taking off their sleeves of doubt. The distance relationship is the major bust in the practical next step of either moving home or staying in Nashville and adds a complete uprooting into the mix of decisions.
Pat is ever supportive of every decision I make and does his best to stay neutral on this all encompassing decision. My parents, as well, despite their bias, really try to take their feelings out of the verdict. Deep down, before it is discussed, I fully know what I want to do, but everytime I mention the option to Pat or my parents I don’t get the commemorating song and dance I hope for, and search more for facts to back the decision.
“Well, did you get the charts and tables I sent?”
“We did, they look great. According to your charts, moving back home to St. Louis and living at home seems to be the logical choice.”
“Before we get there, I think it should be noted that Harvard and Nashville are out of the questions,” I begin as if a proof to a jury. “First, I think I’m going to rule out the Boston area. I’m going to postpone my doctorate program a few years. Its definitely something I want to do, but I want to know more about what aspects of education I want to focus on and in order to figure that out, I need to get into the field. Second, Nashville wont really propel me forward in any certain way. I’m still away from family and Pat, doing a job I could do in any of the cities. So it’s still between St. Louis and Delaware.”
“St. Louis seems like a good choice. You’ve got your family. You know the schools. You have a group of friends. You’ve got your friend Lori. Hows Lori doing by the way?”
“Shes good, Dad. Just talked to her the other day. You know shes already buying a house in Soulard, got a new boyfriend too. She’s doing really well.”
“That’s great that’s great. You can save enough money like Lori did by living at home and maybe buy a house in a couple years. What do you think of that?”
“Yeah.” I say with a head nod and a tone of uncertainty. “That sounds good.”
“What about Wilmington?” asks my mom. “What does Pat think of that?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t like to really talk about it. He wants me to make my own decision.”
“He doesn’t? That’s weird. You think he’d really let you know he wanted you up there? Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” I respond brashly. “He’s just trying to let me make my own decision so I’ll be happy making the big move up north and that he doesn’t have to hear me say, I did this because of you, everytime I’m unhappy with my job and location. That makes sense to me.” My mom’s doubts about Pat even moving away in the first place will always exist and I will always get defensive when a question about Pat arises. Many months went by as I tried to lay the facts on the table about an unexplainable mystery I know as love. It is impossible to take that love out of the decision at hand. I have spent ages 21, 22, and 23, going to bed saying “I love you. Goodnight” to one boy only to wake up 6 hours later to give him my hope for a good day. To be able to expand a relationship based purely on words in conversation into dinner and a movie would be heaven. How many points do I give that on a chart of table?
“I like Wilmington,” I expand. “It’s got really great parks, and I know some of Pat’s friends..”
“Pat’s friends,” my mom intersects. “What if something happens between you and Pat, you have no family near by.”
“I don’t know.” I’m getting shaken up and I can feel the tears of my overemotional self-forming quickly.
“Don’t cry. Crying doenst get you anywhere,” my dad recites the mantra that is engrained in the minds of the three Didion women with never ending tears. “We don’t need to cry about this.”
Despite his words, the tears continues to come.
“I want to move to Wilmington,” I blurt out between heaves. The cry continues over to my parents in my dad’s den.
“I am going to move to Wilmington,” I say once again softer, not only for my parents but for myself.
And there, I sit, wrapped in the Tshirt memories of my childhood, in my bed, the place of most comfort, staring at a computer screen and a decision with mascara running down my face.
Seeing my parents’ reactions in front of me, I know that there will be no champagne openings just yet with the decision I have demanded. But there is a sense of forced support between them toward me. My mom rambles on about my having to trust my instincts, revisiting the St Louis option a couple times, but by the end of the conversation she does her best to talk herself into liking the decision made for her daughter’s sake. My dad goes on like business rerouting my trip to see Pat in April from pleasure to securing a living situation and signing my job contract. By the end of the Skype date, we have set a weekend in which to move me, figured out the exact cost of the move in whole (including fast food stops and motel visits), and decided on how my furniture will be set-up with the dimensions on the blueprint of my future home.
My overactive imagination begins on what life might be like as a Wilmingtonian, a first-year special education teacher, a girlfriend, and a long-distance daughter.
How you sit in a car for a 13-hour drive north…
Strapped into my bright blue two-door car I’ve driven since I was 16, preplanned playlists on my ipod plugged in, starbucks in the cupholder, gps wired up, boxes to the ceiling, boyfriend by my side, I put the car in drive behind the UHaul my parents are navigating. My chest tightens as I drive away from my beloved apartment complex. Nashville was my training wheels city that got me where I am. This is where I met Pat, realized my potential, and found my strength.
I was all about my independence and starting the world on my own. For two weeks into my Nashville life, I, routinely mind you, talked to everyone and anyone, smiled constantly, and went places to just sit and hope people would approach me. I found myself reading books at Starbucks, looking up from the pages every 10 minutes to make eye contact with the strangers around me. While ordering my latte, I found myself lingering on words with employees just a little too long about how much I love soy milk, or the weather in Nashville, or being newly plucked from St. Louis. Only when they would give me one word answers, looking over my shoulder at the next customer, would I realize, I was being “that girl.”
For the most part with this approach, I attracted creepy lonely people like myself. This resulted in giving out fake phone numbers and looking over my shoulder for fear of being followed. One day, I changed up the routine. Instead of going to the pool between 10-3 (peak sun hours), I was late and went to lay out around 3:30. Propped up on my chair, large iced water, incredibly intimidating Abe Lincoln “Team of Rivals” novel, US Weekly Magazine, and my sun block, I was prepared to relax. Relaxation is not something that comes naturally, and the entire time I kept thinking about how I off my day had been. Frustrated at my inability to zen, I began packing up my things, when in walked two cuties with a case of beer in tow. I changed my mind and decided to veg just a little longer to see where this could go.
“Is that incredibly large book just a cover to appear intelligent?”
I looked up from my book at the scruffy 20 something smart ass eyeing me from the waters edge.
“I see you’re a Vandy girl through and through, did ya read that US Weekly cover to cover yet?”
Always timid around cute boys, I replied, “You caught me. But I really am reading this book. Abe Lincoln is my favorite.” Ugh. Abe Lincon is my favorite. I sounded like a complete ditz.
“Wanna beer?”
“Uh…” contemplating messing up my planned evening workout, “Sure.”
“I’m Pat.”
“Lisa,” I said, abandoning my man Abe and going to soak my legs into the edge of the pool. This is the first of many plans that Pat would coax me to break, showing me the fun in relaxation and what life was really about (Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, right?)
From there the conversation was easy. The usual chit chat about where you’re from, whats your major goes from there. I’m surprised at how witty and confident I am talking to these boys, Pat and Mike, both competing for the attention from the bikini clad intellect. They continue to try and impress me about their Nashville knowledge and their positive traits. A few beers and laughs later, a new plan is in place, that they are both taking me out for my first night on the town.
“Can you be ready in like 30 minutes?” Mike asked. Clearly, he hasn’t been in too many relationships and probably has no sisters, considering most girls think an hour is quick to doll up for the evening.
“Sure,” and soon enough numbers are exchanged as I quickly gather my things and sprint up to my apartment.
I jump in the shower to get the suntan oil and lemon off my body. No one knows my clothes so outfit choice is a breeze, makeup is applied in the same routine as always (foundation, bronzer, blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipgloss with a final blot), throw a few curls in my long hair and I stare at my 25 minutes satisfaction.
I then made a quick call to my mother. “I made friends!” I start.
“What’s her name!?” my mom’s excitement seeps through the wires.
“Pat and Mike. They are taking me to dinner.”
“Boys! Lisa, be careful!! Don’t drink too much, and be carefuil.”
“I will, Mom,” I ensure, “They are totally nice.”
“Call me when you get home.”
“Will do.”
In short, the night was perfect. Not following my mom’s advice, I probably drank too much wine but I couldn’t deny the safety I felt next to Pat. Everytime he got up from the table, Mike and I had nothing to talk about. When Mike was absent, Pat and I could not stop talking, feeding eachother on the beautiful way we could string words together. Between the dancing and the laughing, I was one smitten kitten.
To Mike’s dismay, I chose Pat and we were inseparable for the next weeks. He knew me so well without knowing me at all. On our first official date, my clumsy nervous self dropped my turkey avocado sandwich down my shirt and spilled my water, only to look up to his kind smile as he referred to the mishap as “endearing.”
Weeks into the fling, he broke the news to me that he was moving back to his home in Delaware. As quickly as he came, he packed up his blazer and his pup Riley and with one final embrace, we exchanged hope for a shaky and unsure future.
Peanut butter with icecream and sappy love music filled me up for the next week. A day before the beginning of my graduate degree, I snapped myself out of it, got my running shoes on, and started to plan how to be the perfect student. Schedules were printed, books bought, notebook, pens, and outfits were laid out for my first week of school.
It’s easy to understand from a professional stand-point why I went to graduate school to begin with. I love to learn. Words and Numbers show you a black and a white, however ambiguous that may actually be. Therefore I found myself at a research one university to become a behaviorist: one who watches and interprets through other peoples behaviors exactly why they did what they did or feel how they feel. Something directly causes it. To ever why question there is another statement that follows with a because.
This is a passion that developed early on in life. I realized that whatever questions I asked there was an answer. You get the typical Why is the sky blue? But as you go on and on ask questions to these adults and big siblings and they answer you. It was intoxicating. Why never stop asking why. It worked and my reputation as a blabber mouth began. I can remember the day in 6th grade, when we received our Science experiment notebooks. I had to hide my secret excitement and push aside my nerd obsession to try to achieve middle school cool (it never happened, they saw right through it). Besides getting locked in bathrooms, stolen lunches, I did my best to interpret Why people did what they did and for the most part was ok with their reasons and continued forth as a hopeless optimist.
This however not exactly turned out healthy.
It was a whole new world of control and it bled into every aspect of my life, unfortunately. If I melt these ingredients together and put them in the oven, whala a thanksgiving feast which led to, but what would happen if I added more cheese, less butter, a little bit of paprika, and wow that’s even better. Beyond my kitchen experiments, I became rigid in x calories in, x calories out, pure science based teenage dieting. In highschool, I made friends easy, regardless of constant bullying by them, and made the life decision to understand bullies to help other kids through the mess of emotions that is childhood.
Special Education, more specifically behavior disorders, became my passion. I became a listener and a people watcher, making myself a motherly/advice figure to my friends. I learned the early skills watching the case studies of my friends, constantly overanalyzing their lives with them to help them understand why. Failure ensued sometimes, when I didn’t have the guts to tell them what I really thought, watching people I love get hurt, knowing all the while it was coming.
In graduate school, I was able to focus my knowledge in the books and my middle-schooled research subjects. My friendships were no longer my hobby and became something different, relaxed, girl time minus drama. There was an exact science to the people watching and I loved every word of every text book I owned.
Pat and I made it through the doubts, perfecting long distance dating. We saw each other every month, putting miles under us as we flew back and forth from one romantic weekend to the next. He was right there with me through all the up and down stressors of grad school. As the end of my term approached, we knew we needed to take a step further and give the relationship the step it needed to continue.
I glance over to my co-pilot in the seat next to me, rocking to the indie hits he’s dosed me with for the trip. Nerves are pulsing all through my body as I imagine our life face to face. Having many insignificant relationships prior, I’m stepping into a whole new world of unknowns. Our caravan cruises past Vanderbilt and the tears start to well up at the unknown. I don’t even know the whys that I will ask in the next year and the unexpected is terrifying....
I'm still working through my chapter two roadtrip....
Cheers!
I just read this whole thing, word for word, and now I want more! Keep writing, lady. :)
ReplyDeleteStarted reading your blog for the first time today.. This post is amazing keep writing and i will no doubt by a book written by Lisa Didion somday. MIss you honey.
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