#parenting

An exhausting weekend. Having apparently not gotten hiking out of his system after a summer full of it at camp, my older son was dead set on a big hike in the Catskills with his best friends. The hang up seemed to be that none of the parents were willing to drive them to the trailhead, so I told him I would. Ultimately though, neither of his friends were allowed to go at all. They are both only children with parents the same age as my parents, so they are protective. I told him I would be too if I didn't have a backup son. So he asked if I would do it with him. I've never had the least interest in hiking but I agreed. I needed to pick him up at 5am to fit the 16 mile hike into the day, which meant that on Thursday night I tried to go to sleep at 9, then woke before one in the morning Friday to head out. The streets were still fairly crowded with bar crawlers. But I felt reasonably well rested and made it upstate with time to spare. Then we drove the hour and a half to Slide Mountain, the tallest in the Catskills. It was tiring, but not terribly, and we got a couple of decent views. Mostly he jetted off ahead of me and I walked alone. He's much fitter than I am and better at just about everything. Watching him quickly disappear ahead of me seemed like some sort of metaphor for raising children. Phoenicia doesn't really support Lyft or Uber, so I had connected with some woman ahead of time who drives. But when we got to the end of the trail, there was no cell signal to tell her to come get us. Luckily, a very kind couple offered to drive us back to the trailhead. I dropped my son off at a distillery in Roscoe to meet up with his mom and her boyfriend, then I drove to Monticello and got a room at the Hampton Inn. I was terribly sore and obviously cheated on my fast after a 16 mile hike, gorging myself on microwaveable garbage from the hotel lobby. The next morning I picked the boys up and drove home. A generally uneventful weekend. Catch at Peters Field, buying a guppy for my younger son's pet snake to eat, Door Dash, watched Pulp Fiction then got to introduce my older son to Eric Stoltz at church the next day, since he's a regular parishioner. I was ushering and he left a little early so I followed him out and asked the question I always ask of successful people: was there ever a moment when you felt like you'd made it. He said no. Afterwards, the elderly Priest who had presented Sammy for his confirmation finally was able to give him and Averill the prayer books he had gotten them. He took us up to the altar and blessed them. At some point I discovered my ex had removed me from her followers on Instagram. It hurt a little but was probably inevitable. On our first date she teased me that Americans all think they are special and I said that I am in fact special. I hold onto that so it's hard to feel unimportant and replaceable though I guess we all ultimately are. I drove the boys back upstate and arrived early enough that Averill and I had a half hour to play catch in the parking lot at the top of the hill. Hugged them goodbye and told them I loved them then filled up the car at the gas station in Fosterdale. Sat in the grass on the periphery of the station feeling like I didn't have it in me to drive another two and a half hours home. Swearing that once the boys go off to college I will never drive again. But I managed. And came home and got into bed early. I had messaged my ex last night saying I was sad she had disconnected on Instagram and that it was hard to believe it's coming up on a year since we met. She didn't respond but I saw she looked at my Instagram story; a picture of Sammy sleeping on the couch. It feels like the hike, glimpses of Averill as he goes on ahead until I can't see him anymore and I'm just trodding along a path I was never interested in to begin with. Everyone moving faster and more purposefully than me who is just sore and tired and bored. Everyone elusive.

In an overcast Falmouth. Woke up dreading the long drive home, after the constant recurring nightmare that I am rushing to get to a flight and am hopelessly late, then another that I was trying to help one son into a swimsuit and he started sobbing and I put my cheek against his wet eyes. Then I wondered where the other son was and wondered if I had left him in a hot car, but realized he is now more than capable of exiting a car. One time after my recent breakup I had the late-for-my-flight dream but I was in a hotel room with the ex and for once I didn't mind or feel stressed.

That's one way to look at it. Another is "my dumb kid is gettin' into Harvard!!"