Connecting with your teen worth the wait

I’m at the end of a line of cars when my cellphone dings.

I don’t even have to look at the screen to know what it says:

“Are you here yet?”

I try to quiet my seething irritability that she’s not already outside at the ready, though I know from experience that she wouldn’t be.

I wait until my rattletrap station wagon comes to a complete stop before I answer in the affirmative. Then I take deep, cleansing breaths as the minutes tick past without sight of her. When she strolls into view, I fear I will start to hyperventilate.

She seems to be moving toward the car by a magnetic force as she looks in every direction but mine.

I wonder if I roll forward will she end up at the car behind me?

Inhale.

Exhale.

Let go of vengeful thoughts.

Inhale.

Exhale. The car door opens and then slams shut. The girl buckles up. She slumps in the passenger seat as she pushes her backpack to the floor.

She turns her head away from the line of cars jockeying to be next in line and keeps her gaze trained on my shoulder blade.

I think about asking her if not being seen is the same as not seeing? “Just go.” The meter is running. Switched to its ON position with the teen’s simultaneous commandeering of the FM airwaves.

She has a schedule, a parttime job, and a life that, as her mother, I couldn’t possibly understand. Though, currently, she also needs me to connect these particular dots, beginning at 2:19 every other weekday afternoon. She, in turn, must pony up something in the way of compensation. “Thanks.” A kind word can be quite costly. “Can we go now?” Of course, she’d expect change.

Self-sacrifice is personal like that. We can’t expect adoration for acts volunteered like weed flowers.

It’s not as if I expect undying praise for selecting only the Laffy Taffy out of the leftover Halloween candy basket and leaving the Baby Ruths and Snickers bars isn’t the kind of selflessness that registers.

Nor does a parental shuttle service.

It would be nice to feel like I know where we’re headed.

Not that I’m not glad to do it.

Although “glad” isn’t the right word.

My happiness doesn’t figure into this equation. It can’t even be counted among the commodities on this index. This phase in my existence is measured in hopes, anxiety ...

And, increasingly, anger.

Which exists in much the same way that a pothole exists at mile two of this now routine afternoon commute. It’s easier on everyone if I can manage to avoid this particular crater, but a mid-ride jolt isn’t likely to end in calamity.

Unless politics are involved. Or parental advice. Or any manner of momentary glances that’s intention could be misinterpreted.

I don’t know why we’re always on edge. Maybe it’s familiarity breeding contempt. Or the comfort of safety and the lack of concern for appearances.

I don’t take it personally.

Especially since I know the day will come – not long from now – when the idea of needing her mother to give her a ride will be as horrifying as noticing a streamer of toilet paper on one’s shoe.

I also don’t take it personally because such affronts as fleeting as childhood.

“Let’s go. I’m gonna be late.” “Ok … then. Where to?” “Map says “Old Town Road.”

“Where ‘I’m going to ride ‘till I can’t no more’.”

The laughter at that moment as we traded song lyrics line for line turned out to be worth the wait.

Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.