I’d finally found a moment to take a breath, sit down for a sec, and strategize how to complete my to-do list in the next two hours, before more than a dozen guests started showing up at the house, expecting to be fed. I still wanted to run down the street to my office and print out readings I’d found, make the matzah balls for the soup, cut the crudités, and set the table.
And for the first Passover in years, I felt like I was ahead of the game.
Which was weird, because Simone wasn’t around to help me; I was doing it all myself — the cleaning, the organizing, the shopping, the prep, the cooking.
For years, Simone and I have hosted Passover seder for friends and family — we would plan together, then she’d come along to two or three grocery stores, where I’d send her on missions to track down ingredients. The day before the ceremonial dinner, I’d get started on prep while she would create our “Passover Jeopardy” board, which had become an annual tradition.
On the day of the big dinner, I’d work feverishly to get things in order, giving Simone her own list to get through (clear the counters, wash the parsley, set the table, unload the dishwasher, make the salt water). Every year, I’d get progressively more stressed, and every year she’d start to grouse that she just wanted to relax on the couch and that hosting a seder for 15-20 people caused us more stress than pleasure. But every year, by the time we all sat down around the tandem tables, we felt warm and happy and excited to share a festive evening with our Denver fam.
So this year, when Simone’s mom emailed me that she’d booked their spring break trip right into the holiday, I was devastated — it’s our last chance to host a seder together for a long time. I was sad that we wouldn’t share in our annual tradition once more before she left for college, I was disappointed that my friends wouldn’t get to celebrate with her, and I was bummed I wouldn’t have an extra set of hands to help me through.
On the brighter side, I thought, the celebration could be a bit more salty and grown-up without the teen, and maybe more sloshy, too.
But the way things turned out were probably a pretty decent preview of what life will be like in a few months, when Simone moves away and I’m on my own — the goodness and the grief.
First, not having the girl around may have actually helped me stay focused. I got little bits of prep and cleaning out of the way during the week, and stayed up until the wee hours the night before getting the chicken soup going and the tilapia terrine ready for the oven. And though it was a somewhat lonely time in the kitchen all the next day, listening to podcasts and multitasking was a LOT less stressful than listening to whining and chivvying the girl to get off her butt and help out.
When my friends started showing up, the initial chaos from logistical hiccups smoothed into a lovely, chill evening. We FaceTimed with Simone during Passover Jeopardy, and she loved being part of the celebration. It wasn’t the same thing as having her there, of course. But her voice and presence still added joy and playfulness to the evening, and it was good to see her face for a few minutes. I didn’t cry when we hung up, but I did take another shot of tequila with my friends.
Just like when Simone moves away, I’d expected to drink more — whooping it up and toasting friends and freedom, slowly and joyfully drifting into a happy haze of celebration. But though the wine and liquor flowed freely, nobody got too blotto, including me. By the time everyone left late in the evening, I was a little wine-happy, elbows deep in soap suds, listening to music as I washed pots and pans and set them out to try.
And that's the thing, right? I have no idea how it’s going to be when my little girl, housemate, friend, and travel buddy moves away in August. I’ll probably find it a little better than what I’m imagining, and a little worse, too.
There’s no question I’ll miss her terribly, and that I’ll have moments of deep sadness, wallowing in loneliness when she leaves. Little things will trigger heartache. Wednesdays won’t have the extra magic of being excited about picking up Simone at the bus stop and getting her back for a few days. We won’t have our Saturday afternoon reading fests at our favorite coffee shop, Simone sipping away at her earl grey tea, both of us deep in our books for hours, but joined in companionable silence, our mutual love of the written word connecting us to each other.
We won’t have our evening routine, the same since she was two years old, where she sips Yogi Tea in bed, while I read aloud another novel (doing all the voices), stopping at times as we talk about the implications and themes, laughing together before I turn out the light and we say our bedtime prayer, kissing her on the forehead, and closing the bedroom door.
Yep, yep, it’s going to crush me for awhile.
But.
I’ll no longer have to turn down a big Thursday evening foodie event because I’m parenting. I won’t have to get up before dawn to wake up Simone, pack her lunch, make her breakfast, and drive her to school.
I could go out big every night of the week, if I wanted to.
But the reality is, as fun as that sounds, I still need my hermit time. I don’t tend to get hungover, but I do find myself in need of quiet couch and movie evenings, where I trade bourbon and bluster for tea and television. It’s not like I’m going to suddenly get drunk every night, just because I don’t have my built-in parenting evenings to keep me in check.
And even if I do find myself paralyzed by the extra alone time, unable to make a decision beyond what to forage for dinner from the fridge, my friends will NOT let me drift away in a haze of self-pity. In fact, I’ll have more time for my pals than ever before. How amazing will it be to hop a plane for a long weekend of indulgent drinking and dining escapes with my friends without having to sort out if it’s a parenting weekend?
As much as my heart hurts to realize how quickly these last four months are going, and how much I’m trying to wring the most out of every remaining moment with my girl, a part of me is secretly excited about the freedom of this next phase of my life.
Will I go overboard one direction or the other? Drinking myself to oblivion several nights in a row, or not leaving my bed for days at a time? Yep, no doubt. But my motto for my adult life has been, “All things in moderation, even moderation.” So I can’t imagine drifting too far from a moderated and magical way of living, just because I no longer have a kid in the house.
I wrote years ago about how Passover celebrates the Israelites’ escape from Egypt, “Mitzrayim” in Hebrew, which means “narrow place.” Every year, during the holiday, I think about the narrow places in which I’m trapped or encumbered — a work situation that’s a source of daily stress; a way of thinking that keeps me limited to a certain path; expectations from others that I’m shouldering without knowing it.
Hosting seder this year opened my eyes to a narrow place I didn’t know I’d slipped into, which is the constant awareness that the clock is ticking, and Simone already has a foot out the door. It’s pretty much all she can talk about, and it’s all anyone asks me about lately, and it’s the thing I always bring up first when people ask what’s going on in my life. Maybe I need to stop the constant rumination and just enjoy spring and summer as much as possible — when I have Simone with me, but also when I don’t.
These next few months are going to be tough. Emotional, anxious, and full of tears. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t keep finding the magic in every day and doing my best to be mindful of the moment, whether Simone is part of it or not.
I’m not ready for her to go. But I’m excited for this next phase of her life.
And mine.
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