Summer with teens

I haven’t written at all this summer.  When I write, I want to be grateful.  I want to be optimistic and centered and I want to conclude with an answer.  I write to process my thoughts and to work through problems.  But this summer, I keep thinking and trying and processing, and I still can’t find a resolution in my mind.  

Overall, it wasn’t a bad summer.  I mean, I went to Jamaica with my girlfriends, for crying out loud.  The two youngest boys both went to sleep away camp for a week.  We went camping with friends, spent time on the beach, and this weekend, we’re headed to the lake house for our annual trip.  

But summer is always hard for me.  I crave the structure of the school year.  I do better with routine.  I accomplish more when I have deadlines and limited time frames.  So summer always leaves me feeling like I should have done more. It gives me too much time to analyze every decision and leaves me with guilt about all the lazy days.  

The solution to this has always come to me in the form of scheduled fun.  Beach trips.  The zoo. Swimming.  Fishing.  Sleepover parties.  Bonfires. Camping.  Until this year, those things have been my saving grace.  They always made me feel like I was making the best of the summer days.  If I wasn’t accomplishing WORK, at least we were accomplishing FUN. But things are changing. 

Teenagers are so freaking hard.  Their emotional roller coaster becomes YOUR emotional roller coaster when you spend too much time with them.  And the mood swings leave me reeling and raw.  

We went to Old Orchard Beach- we spent one night in a motel, after picking up Lee from camp, and on our way to drop off Cal.  Bea wouldn’t go near the water.  She sulked on the shore, occasionally throwing a blanket over her head to check her phone.    

We went camping.  Lee just wanted to lay in his tent and listen to music. S’mores?  Swimming?  Ping Pong? Nope.  

We planned a day at Canobie Lake Park.  Cal was thrilled to go.  Lee was ambivalent but whiny.  Bea was miserable and vehement.  And that left me with a choice.  Do I make them all go?  Do I risk ruining a lovely day with my youngest with bitching and moaning from the older ones?  Will I regret it if I let them stay home?  I let them stay home.  I regretted it. 

Every day, over and over again, I have these choices.  Should I be loving and kind?  Joke them out of it?  Tell them it’s not a choice?  Yell at them to snap out of it?  Let them sulk, knowing they’ll eventually get over it?  I do all of these things, but none of them ever seems like the right answer. I don’t know what the right answer is. 

They have a few things to do every day.  Chores. Reading.  Math practice.  And then they have to spend a few hours out of their bedrooms and off of screens. You’d think I was having them tarred and feathered.  It’s freaking exhausting.  

Then I think about all the things I SHOULD do.  We should do more family game nights.  I should get them back on a schedule to cook dinner.  I should stop yelling.  I should start yelling more.  God.  I don’t freaking know.  WHY IS THERE NO MANUAL?

I keep trying things. There are new rules now.  Rules about screens and family time and laundry and chores.  When they’re lazy or sneaky, I’m doing a new thing.  I used to take stuff away (no screens, no phone, you’re grounded). Now, every time they make more work for me, I’m adding a chore for them.  Didn’t do your laundry this week?  Today, you’ve got to do yours AND mine.  Left dirty dishes in your room again?  Today, ALL the dishes are your job.   

I’m writing this today because I need to know I’m not alone in this.  PLEASE tell me that the rest of you with teenagers are navigating this rough new territory with me.  

I’m finally back in therapy. I need some freaking therapy in my life.  I think we all do, really.  But you know what my therapist asked me last week?  She wanted me to tell her what I had planned just for ME.  And you know what?  I couldn’t answer.  Manicures? But I’ll take my daughter. Camping?  With kids and friends.  A party?  That I’m hosting for my husband.  

I’ve come to associate fun things with family things.  And maybe with teenagers, that’s just unrealistic.  Maybe what I need to do is worry about them less, and worry about me just a little bit more.  

It feels selfish to write that.  Selfish, but honest.  

I didn’t realize I was doing it, until my therapist pointed it out.  But when things get crazy and I have to pull back or change plans or cancel something, I always cancel the thing that’s for ME.  Because that’s the thing that feels frivolous or selfish or unnecessary.  This summer, I cancelled a motorcycle ride with a friend and bailed on book club with my girls.  I said no to lunch with a colleague and did my toenails at home instead of getting that pedicure.  

Part of that is probably because I feel guilty about that Jamaica trip.  That was the ultimate in selfish indulgence. But looking back, it was good for me.  It was good for all of us.  

There’s a lesson in there somewhere.  Put on your own mask before you try to help others, or some such gem.  I’m not sure I’m qualified to write about that one just yet. But I’m going to work on it.  I promise. Wish me luck.