Lisa Endlich's Blog, page 387
July 27, 2017
How to Say Goodbye? Mom of Only Child Asks for Help
My daughter, an only child, is two years away from heading off to college, and already I find myself dreading the day she spreads her bold, witty, kick-ass-and-take-no-prisoners wings and leaves.
Realistically, I know it’s folly to spend the next two years fixated on what’s to come, instead of relishing every precious moment I have today. A few months ago my dread grew to the point where I recognized I needed to do something about it.
My daughter is my only child, and we’re very close – as i...
Why “Doing Nothing” is the Hardest Job of Parenting
Surprise. Parenting is hard. Okay that’s not a surprise. The surprise is that one of the hardest parts of parenting is doing nothing. Yes. Really. Sitting on your hands and resisting the temptation to fix problems for our kids can be one of the most difficult exercises in parenting. Self control. It’s ironic that we expect our kids to practice impulse control throughout their lives but we don’t realize how much we need that same lesson.
My kids are 14, 19 and 20 and it has been a lifetime si...
The Day I Looked for a Boy and Found a Man
Our tribe once had a name: we were the Boy Moms.
We were the ones who stepped on Legos in bare feet in the middle of the night and yelled at our sons to please stop jumping off of the back of the couch. We demanded that they not hit each other with light sabers and we set up backyard obstacle courses to be run endlessly, or at least until nap time, in football helmets. We found ourselves using our outside voices in unlikely directives, things like “No, you may not pee in the backyard!” and “W...
July 23, 2017
Drug Addiction: What Happened the Night My Brother Overdosed
A college sophomore writes a letter to her younger self to help her understand her bother’s drug addiction.
Dear early 2000’s Rachel,
One stormy night you will be sitting in your room watching “Grey’s Anatomy,” and you will be conscious of the lightning outside. It won’t be long before you realize that some of the “lightning strikes” are red and blue rather than white. The lights will draw you to the window, but when you realize you can’t see anything, the interest will guide you down the st...
This is the Definition of the Happy Kind of Sadness
As my puffy red eyes catch the glare of the airport security guard, I am well aware that I have far overstayed my allotted time in the drop-off zone. And yet, given the unrelenting flow of tears blurring my vision, we both know that I am not yet ready to move my car.
I bow my head, close my eyes and allow the magnitude of the life-changing transitions that had occurred over past 45 days sink in:
My oldest child’s out-of-state college graduation weekend with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandp...
July 22, 2017
My Family is “In Between”and I Love it
I hear the door open downstairs and my son enter the house. I breathe a sigh of relief, smile. He’s off the road. Home again. For now. Nonchalantly I head down the stairs to give him a hug. I don’t want to scare him with the surge of love I still feel every time he returns safely. But I actually don’t think he would mind. He crumples on the living room couch. “I’m sooo happy to be home. I’m exhausted.”
My oldest, he’s just graduated from college and will soon begin a new job in New York. In...
My Move-in Day: A Gap Year, New Tattoos, and One Purple Sock
It was late east coast time as we slid into the booth at the hotel diner. The cold A.C. tossed Jack’s brown waves. Just yesterday those waves were baby curls I could pull and they would spring back in a coil. Jack pointed out goose bumps in the tattoos on his forearm. They didn’t get sunburned at the beach, he said. I used that tattoo sunblock”.
My son loves his new tattoos. I’ve caught him admiring them in the mirror as he brushes his teeth – the “flap jacks” and the “Jack hammer” that he dr...
July 21, 2017
My Daughter has Anxiety. She Made it Through College Orientation
“Will you come to the bathroom with me?”
I turned to look at my 18-year-old daughter. She was green. I knew what was coming. We raced to the bathroom and got there just in time. At least that was where she threw up and not in the seminar we had been attending.
24 hours earlier, on the 4th of July, we were sitting in the Urgent Care office of her pediatrician. She had woken up with a cough, a cold, and just felt “icky.” I prayed for the strep test to come back positive. My wish was for her to...
My College Son Got so Drunk He was Taken to the ER
We, as parents, were not naïve to the issue of alcohol among college students or to the fact that our son drank before he even set foot on campus. I had a vague awareness of a possible fake ID but never saw it or confirmed. We had all the important discussions, stressed safety and responsible drinking and really thought we had covered our bases.
Yet, none of those fireside chats prepared me for getting the phone call that my child was being transported to the hospital after he had gotten dr...
July 18, 2017
7 Things This 20-Something Would Tell Her Teenage Self
Last night, I was sitting at a red light with my 18 month old son and husband in the car. I happened to look up and saw a white car speeding toward us with no inclination as stopping. Finally, she slammed on her brakes and skidded to a stop, approximately 6” from my bumper. While I was looking at the girl driving in the rear view mirror, bracing myself for what I thought was about to happen, one odd thought came to my mind: where are her eyes? Why aren’t they on the road? She was likely eithe...
