How I got ready

Last Thursday night: I find myself standing in the parking lot of the newspaper, arms across my chest, leaning against my car, ill-at-ease.

"I'm not ready," I say, partly to see if it's true.

It is. I feel the weight of it settling on me, solid but flighty -- like a pirate's parrot on my shoulder.

How absurd. I think. There's nothing to be ready or not ready for.

I'm distracted from the reassurances of my friend by the litany of tasks I have yet to accomplish (running through my brain like breaking news on the CNN scrolling marquee). This is normal and does not explain the spreading dread I'm feeling.

"I'm sure you'll be ready to go in the morning," he says -- or something like that.

I eventually get into the car and drive home, still mulling over what I have yet to do -- finishing packing the car, remembering to bring the essential things I can't pre-pack, checking the house one last time before I close it up -- but not feeling any better. By the time I push my key into the lock, fake gold into fake bronze, I feel panic creeping in at the edges of my thoughts.

I go in and turn on the lights. I put my things down on the coffee table in the living room, where small piles of papers still sit waiting for my attention -- where they will remain through my vacation -- and go into the bedroom. I change for bed, hoping sleep will erase the dis-ease -- hoping I can sleep at all -- and try to push the panic out, or down, or back, but it's like trying to push water.

This hasn't happened to me before, I think. This is not like me. This is a road trip, which I love.

But things won't be the same, the panic replies. When you return. And you haven't said good-bye.

It's stupid to say good-bye, I say, when I'll just be back in ten days.

But you haven't spent any time with your family since your last trip. You've avoided them.

With good reason. They talk about nothing but how I avoid them.

You won't have a chance to tell them. You'll feel guilty -- you feel guilty now.

But I don't know, or refuse to think about, what I'm supposed to have said -- to have told them.

In desperation, I pick up my journal and write: "I feel like I should have said a REAL good-bye to everyone."

The feeling of dread, premonition-like, frightens me. The conviction that things won't be the same again is like a lump in my throat, hard to swallow past. The idea of missing my family is strange and unfamiliar -- like the idea of death.

I am tired, though, and I sleep.

In the morning, I pack what is left to be packed. I check my list, twice, and, satisfied, pull out to return my movies to the library. From the library parking lot, I remember that I haven't had my mail stopped -- and I was going to call her anyway, to tell her I'm going -- so I call my mom.

"Mom, I'm leaving now," I say, in a light tone (betraying none of the anxiety or conflict of the night before [she senses weakness as a wolf does]).

"Fine," she says, neutral. "Where are you going? Delaware?"

I laugh, the sound mostly hollow. "No, D.C. I've never gone to Delaware. I don't know anyone there, really."

"Oh. And when are you going to be back?"

It pinches the nerve of my missing, this question, and I feel my heart go out to this mom -- we had discussed this, I hadn't been remiss, I do still love her despite (because of) my neglect: I laugh again, more hollowly.

"I told you this," I say, "we've talked about it."

I say it lightly, as lightly as possible. I mean it to excuse myself, but it's what causes the shift.

"FINE," she says, in her coldest tone (reserved only for leave-taking, I realize suddenly), "GO. HAVE A GOOD TIME."

Her "have a good time" makes use of the same tone in which most people would say "rot in Hell, you bastard." But suddenly, I wonder if she means it -- that she hopes I have a good time.

"Now, wait," I say in my "let's-get-one-thing-straight-right-now" teacher voice. "I wasn't criticizing. I'm going to answer your question. I'm happy to answer your question. I just wanted to point out that this is not the first time we've talked about this. I told you several weeks ago that I was planning this, and I remember because you asked me whether I'd be back for Spencer's graduation, and I said yes, that of course I would, that I wouldn't ever go if it meant missing his graduation."

"Fine," she says, partly placated -- in Eeyore's world-weary voice, now, which is an improvement, at least. "Have a good time."

She hangs up; I hang up.

I let my shoulders fall and gasp, tears shocking me and spending themselves quickly.

Why is it so hard with her, always, I think, the rut of the refrain worn smooth and deep with use.

I realize suddenly that this had been the missing. This ritual of leave-taking -- arguing, being yelled at, crying -- the lack of this has been the source of my anxiety, my feeling of missing my family, my impulse toward a permanent good-bye.

My mother's resentment at being abandoned serves -- has always served, I see now -- as my benediction (or malediction). It is how I know she needs me, loves me, wants me to return. It comforts me. Somehow, it is my bulwark against death. (It is immortal.)

This is why I called her: to be yelled at.

We are so backwards, I think.

I pull out onto the street, heading toward the highway.