Into the Woods - the mother's turn

I'm off to Tree Hugger U this weekend for the Family BBQ. It'll be good to see Velvet. Some people apparently talk to their children on the phone. Velvet is hard to pin down that way. He's only called me once since Buzz Kill and I installed him in the dorm and that was because he wanted me to mail him my one hitter. I thought that was cute.

His father has been calling him with constant reminders which is good because somebody has to be the bitchy nudge. Buzz Kill is great in that role. Occasionally Buzz Kill calls to give me important information like Velvet has gone through his semester's spending money in a month.

Oh Well. According to Buzz Kill, Velvet has a plan to make some money. Buzz Kill warned Velvet that selling Ritalin is bad, bad, bad. I know Velvet won't sell his Ritalin because he can only get about $3 each for the 5 mgs. I checked with a friend of his who is a sophomore in Binghamton. He could get $10 each for the 30mg sustained released Ritalins - but he only has a prescription for one of those per day. He'll keep those for himself because he needs pharmaceutical intervention in order to remember to bring his Irish Spring Body Wash with him to the shower. He always has a surplus of the 5mgs, though, because he can take those as needed throughout the afternoon and evening. But he won't sell those - he'll use them to get chicks. Velvet knows all about social capital.

I'm not exactly worried about Velvet. I told him that it's just as well he ran out of money partying his first six weeks at school since it's time for him to study for midterms. Also I suggested that if he had that much free time, he could certainly get a job doing research for one of the professors projects a few hours per week. Everyone needs to master the skill of entertaining him/herself without the benefit of disposable income. Since we're coming up this weekend, though, Velvet has to deal with his parents. Fortunately, we've had visiting days up at the Hippy Dippy Quaker Camp so the little family knows how to manage a parental incursion into kidspace.

Buzz Kill has been over here a lot working on the bike we're taking up to Velvet. He's been quick to get hostile with me lately, but that tends to happen near the first of every month when I start looking for my money. I don't blame the man for getting touchy about forking over large sums of court ordered cash for my support. I wonder sometimes if he found the blog, though, and is waiting for an opportune moment to hit me over the head with the discovery. That would make him hostile, too. Since he will be riding up to TreeHugger U with me, the possibility of being stuck in the car for five hours with a hostile individual is troubling.

I'm looking forward to a solitary, peaceful drive home, though. I can reflect on the the changes in my happy little world now that I'm fifty, my kid is gone to college and I'm realizing that I don't have to be the person my mother hoped I'd be when I was younger. When Velvet was little, I struggled for my mother's approval of my own mothering which was actually a good thing even though sometimes it felt like she was harshly judgmental. It's difficult to say whether she's as hard-core as I experience her or if my own mishigas influences my interpretation. Either way, now that I'm fifty and my kid is at college, it's okay for me to follow my individual nature instead of making decisions based on the rigid definition my mother has set for responsible, acceptable, sensible behavior.

One of the scheduled events for the TreeHugger U's annual BBQ weekend is a tour of the forest. Naturally a university full of treehuggers would have a forest campus nearby. The weather in that part of New York State is a little chilly so there should be some fall color.

A trail through the actual forest 20 minutes south of the main campus

This morning I'm remembering that earlier in the summer, before Velvet went to college, it seemed to me like he was running off into the woods (In Which Velvet Runs Into the Woods Stonerdate 06.28.09). Now it's my turn. The prospect of making my way in the world now that I'm not a full time wife and mother anymore is daunting and sometimes overwhelming. Just last night I was feeling like my world is precariously balanced with very little security. Everyone must feel that way sometimes. Plenty of women have walked down this trail before, though, so it's not like I'm lost in the woods with no idea of how to proceed. I just need a little gumption.