on post offices.

5pm.  Leave work.  Call friend.  Tell her I feel a little cray today.  Like, can’t get out of my head.  Like, erratic.  You are erratic, she says.  “I know.  I’m working on it."

5:20. Stop by post office to mail borrowed flash drive.  My sister and I agree that post offices make us feel like the productive, efficient adults we aren’t.  I leave post offices feeling Type A.  Like I can run a marathon or climb Everest.  Seriously, there is power in the post office.  Like, going to the post office is the procrastination of all procrastinations and crossing it off my list unleashes amazing possibility and potential. When my sister calls and says, “You know why it’s going to be a good day today?”  I immediately know the answer.  “Yeah.  You went to the post office.”

5:26. Text from Savannah as I’m leaving post office: I came home and the house was a COMPLETE mess.  The kitchen was worse.  Bowls.  Cups.  Everywhere.  Syd had a huge mess in the kitchen, and it was clean this morning.  I’m not cleaning her mess.

5:28. I respond: Work it out.  Not leaving post office parking lot until house is clean. I’ll be in the driveway in fifteen to take Somer to basketball practice.

5:50. The Sat pulls in driveway.  I think I hear new tinny noise. I do not get out of car, but allow every opportunity for cleaning redemption.  Somer exits house and enters The Sat.  I drive her to practice and pray engine doesn't fall out in the presence of basketball parents.  

6:05. I brave the threshold of 131.  Thankfully, clean.   I go right to the kitchen and start frying hamburger.  The burner is lopsided; stovetop, stained.  “What are you making?” Sav asks.  “Spaghetti.”  “Not to be mean or anything,” she says, “but in the future can you never buy noodles and sauce again?”  This is somehow worse than a proverbial ‘we always have spaghetti’ and makes me want to slam cupboard doors and pots and pans.  But, I refrain as during our last family discussion, they said such behavior makes them want to commit.  I can't help but go a little cray, though, despite the presence of Sydney’s friend, Kate, in the living room.

6:40. Sav finishes the noodles while I change clothes and head to school to pick up Somer.  I get there early to watch her practice.  I start to feel better.

7:15. Somer and I return home and we all grab plates and load up buffet style.  Kate’s older sister Clare, arrives.  “Hi, Momma!” she says as she takes her coat off and grabs a plate.  I am endeared, my need to slam cupboard doors slowly subsiding.

Despite subsiding frustrations, I still want to retreat to my room for spaghetti with silence.  I instead grab Ungame, family edition, which is basically, discussion prompts for families who are trying to be functional, and join the five girls in my living room.  “Everyone pick a card,” I say as I take a mouthful of noodles.  “And, no cell phones.”

“Seriously, mom?  This is embarrassing.”

We eat spaghetti and take turns reading and responding to the questions on our cards.  They’re feeling it, giving deep thought to their answers while trying to hide their enjoyment.

It was my turn.  “How would your daughter describe you to someone else?”

“Can I have a new card?” I ask.  They tell me no and add, “Be honest, mom.”

“I think she’d say that I’m beautiful, brilliant, and have an amazing personality,” I say, trying not to laugh. “MOM,” they say.  “Be serious.” I stop laughing.  “Ok…if Savannah were talking to her counselor, I think she’d say that I’m stressed when I get home from work.  And, that I have a hard time being consistent - I’m all or nothing.  I can adapt to mess and then I can’t stand it and go a little cray.”

“Mom, can you please not say cray?”

“I think she’d also say that I’m involved in her life,” I add.  “Honest.  That I try really hard to be a good mom.”

She says nothing, seemingly surprised by my honesty and lack of defensiveness.

Clare is next.   She reads her card, “What bothers you about your mom?"   I feel suddenly bonded to the woman who bore these children and decide these cards were written by fourteen year old girls.

“She’s a little cray.  She’s spastic.  She’s stressed a lot.”

“Talk about stress,” I say, becoming therapist.

“She’s stressed about work.  Money.  Bills.”  She elaborates, “And, she’s strict.  She takes our phones away when our rooms are messy or grades are bad.”  The younger sister chimes in, “We have chores every day because she thinks walking the dogs and sweeping the kitchen floor should be the least of her worries.”

Their mom is also divorced and has spent the last several years in Medical School.

As the friends elaborate on their mom’s cleaning expectations and rules, I see my girls shake their heads and silently mouth to their friends, No.  Stop now.  Abort.

We all laugh.   We talk about what it’s like to be a single mom, or parent, for that matter.   What it means to be a family.  We talk about responsibility.  Independence.  And, for a minute, I think they get it, as much as they possibly can with their teen-aged brains.  If nothing else, they feel camaraderie.  They feel normal.

And, so did I.

The friends left and my eldest started cleaning her room without being asked.

Sydney followed.

I didn’t feel cray anymore.

I felt like a good mom.

This was long.  Clearly the result of unleashed power at the post office.