I am Afraid

My blood is boiling. How could I have been duped again? I feel my cheeks redden and sweat break out on my scalp. I will be damned if I let my nineteen year-old son sneak another teenage escapade past me. He has two months left of high school and we are feeling the push me-pull me of burgeoning independence in a painful way. I reach for the phone, already ten sentences into my tirade before he picks up. He doesn’t stand a chance.

“What are you thinking?” I torrent without even a ‘hello’. “There is no way that you are getting away with this.” He sputters and tries to absorb the impact of being caught, all the while parrying his own rebuttal.

“I didn’t do anything,” he pleads. But sadly, I am ready for such a response. I have cross checked my facts, circled my witnesses and have this arsenal at the ready.

Our fighting is like fencing, but a lot less graceful. The conversation arcs and sizzles, leaving us both depleted and raw. I love this guy so much, yet nobody makes me angrier. Ten minutes into my tongue lashing, we are both worn out and are now are both feeling guilty. He for making a mistake, and me for losing my cool and overreacting. I know better. He is just a typical teenager-why do I react so strongly?

Because I am afraid. It is a knee-jerk reaction to the unbridled fear of letting him go and not being able to protect him anymore. I should have seen this coming. We have faced the uncertainty of sleeping on the road for months at a time on various biking expeditions, the discomfort of extreme weather in many wilderness settings, the chaos associated with half-baked plans and countless adventures together, but I was always there to manage the risk. It was orchestrated. Now, he is about to go off on his own and what if…?

People generally think I am brave, but not about this. There are dangers everywhere, and although I have made it my goal to accept this and live fully anyway, watching my son do the same seems to be my undoing. As a mental health counselor, I espoused my clients not to let their anxious feelings serve as chains, but rather as illuminators. I would ask them, “Why do you feel this way? Is it legitimate? Is it truly life threatening, or just a feeling to figure out and accept? Is your heart beating fast because you need to flee a real danger, or just because you are excited and getting ready to take on a challenge? “

So now, I am anxious and afraid and it is time to listen to my own advice. I don’t want the world to eat my son alive, but I also think that if he stays here, I might! My heart is beating quickly and I am red in the face a lot, because this feels scarier than all our adventures put together. I know that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. He has to go and take his own risks and learn his own lessons and I have to feel anxious. What fun.

Last week we went into the Bigalow Mountains with cross-country skies and snowshoes and tried to make our way up the peak. Nobody had walked on the trail yet this winter. There were no footprints to follow, just sporadic, blue blazes on the trees at shin height. They should have been slightly overhead, but this snow was six-feet deep, making them very hard to see and we often found ourselves wandering about a bit lost. Suddenly, I stepped off the trail into a hidden crevice—a snow covered stream where the snow couldn’t support my weight—and I plunged in up to my neck. I wasn’t in danger, but I sure was stuck. My son guffawed and settled in to watch. He couldn’t help, or he would have fallen through as well, so he just gave me not-so-helpful hints and used the opportunity to rest.

Getting out took a monstrous effort, involving  an awkward water-strider, insect sort of a crawl, flailing ski poles, flapping snowshoes and snow fluffing up around my face like feathery down. When I finally righted myself,  we continued tromping up the mountain, like a little group of winter gnomes, amazed by the beauty surrounding us and laughing at our struggles.

Let this struggle we are going through now, as we both learn how to deal with his new independence, be like that. Awkward, but funny. Difficult, but doable. Exhausting, yet beautiful. It may be hard to find our way—but we will—we always do.