Welcome to another issue of It’s Like This. Thanks for reading! And now you’ve got the option to listen - just click the audio link above! 

My son turned 22 this past weekend, and just like every birthday, it’s hard not to think about what I was doing at that age.  

The year I turned 22, his dad and I were newly married.

I had just graduated from college.

The US president inaugurated that year was the first I’d had a chance to vote for.

I was living away from my parents for the first time (not counting dorm life), and beginning to figure out what I was going to be as a “grown up.”

My son’s life looks pretty different.

At 22, my son won’t drive or vote or get married. He’s not going to college, and it’s going to take a little more to figure out what he wants to do with his time post-school.

It’s a different life for him – and for me, as his mom.

But I do have one thing in common with other moms of young adults – whether their kids are getting ready to move out or practicing independent skills while staying home.

My friend sent me this quote recently: 

“Motherhood is really about accepting that fact that you will be permanently worried for the rest of your life.”

Ain’t that the truth?

The year I turned 22, the movie Groundhog Day came out – that film which has now become short-hand for being stuck in a loop of the same thing happening again and again.

That seems right, since that movie is a fitting metaphor for our life at my son’s 22nd birthday.

But unlike Bill Murray, my kid feels comfort in sameness. He chooses to watch the same movies and wear the same shirts. He prefers the same routines and the same meals. It’s Groundhog Day here on many days, and he’d like it to stay that way.

My son watches his “shows” from his favorite spot in the cozy corner of his L-shaped sofa. Despite the fact that this cushion has been steadily sagging from overuse, that’s where he sits, mostly ignoring the rest of the couch. 

But in a moment of agitation a couple weeks ago, he slammed himself down hard in that corner, and I heard (and he felt) a spring snap. He was not happy with how much his spot was sinking after that. In the week it took to get someone out to look at it, my son added the words “Couch” “Fix it” and “Broke it” to his daily repertoire.

Generally, when furniture is moved around, for cleaning or rearranging or God forbid decorating, our son is flustered until things are returned to their proper positions. But when the repair man took his couch apart, my kid was merely curious. 

He knew, of course, that it needed fixing. And, he happily helped put the room back in order when the repair was done — so we could return to his regularly scheduled programming.

A couple weeks ago, I took advantage of my son’s preference for sameness and enlisted his help to clean up the backyard. 

He donned work gloves and spent a few minutes with me sweeping up dirt, moving pots, and taking down the low “fence” that I had installed in an attempt to save our baby quail (see issue #8).

The fence that mostly worked.

It was a dramatic weekend when those eggs finally hatched, involving tiny chicks trapped in my tall geranium pot; two frantic, chirping quail parents running around our patio; failed attempts to give them better ramps that further terrorized them; one – then two – chicks boosting themselves up on the plants to escape; and, an overturned pot releasing the remaining birdies and one unhatched egg.

The day continued into the evening with a family of quail stuck in the corner of our yard (the parents repeatedly leaving over the block wall or pool-safety fencing then returning to their stubby-winged babies who couldn’t fly to follow them), and a worried adoptive parent of the human kind keeping the dog away, pleading with the birds from the windows, and putting out birdseed and water to lure them in the right direction.

Finally, the next morning, I saw the quail family leave under our back gate. But later that day, we made the sad discovery of one baby bird in the pool’s filter basket. I have no idea how he got over my barriers, but it had been a chaotic birthday. Poor thing.

My son and I were both relieved to restore the backyard to its pre-quail-nesting days, and I’m glad most of them made it out of our yard alive. 

I am hoping to catch a glimpse of them, or what’s left of the brood by now, when the chicks learn to fly and they can follow their parents to walk across our block fence.

This is the closest I’ll come to feeling like an empty-nester.

It’d be nice if they’d stop by to say, “Hi.”

We had a quiet celebration for my son’s birthday this past weekend, mostly revolving around baking and eating and baking and eating. Groundhog Day on sugar.

On the 4th, our neighbors set off ground-level fireworks in the street out front, and we watched the larger community display in the distance from our 2nd-floor balcony. The kid was only mildly interested, and mostly stayed inside. 

Just like 22 years ago, when my husband and I saw the fireworks from our baby’s hospital room window on the night after his birth, we’re still watching fireworks from afar with our son close by. Still hoping to build a life of safety and happiness for our little one. Our “little one” just happens to be a big guy now. 

So our kid may not be doing many of the things that we were doing when we were his age.

That’s OK. We’ll do our best.

Besides, there is one really fun thing that my son and I will have in common this summer.

When I was 22, in the summer of 1993, my new husband and I were living in Flagstaff, Arizona. I was the production stage manager for a summer repertory theatre, managing an ensemble of actors and tech crews putting up three shows in rotation. 

Such fun work. But I do remember being distracted on a few of those rehearsal nights by the excitement of basketball – running out to my car on breaks to catch bits of the NBA playoff games on the radio. There were no cell phones at the ready to check the scores. But even back then, we had Al McCoy to give us the play-by-play for our Phoenix Suns.

And now, in 2021, the Suns have made it to the NBA Finals again, for the first time since I was 22.

So, here’s hoping that my son will get to see a more triumphant outcome for our hometown team this time around. 

Go Suns!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit itslikethis.substack.com