A Mother-Daughter Road Trip

Mother-Daughter Road Trip: Atlanta, 2005

We were running pretty late for a road trip. It was already 9:30 a.m. and my daughter still wasn't ready—or fully packed. "Michaela!" I yelled up the stairs. "Let's go!!"
"W-H-A-T-A?! I'll be down in a minute!" she screamed with attitude.
Teenagers can be so loving.

My daughter and I have been taking "mother-daughter" bonding trips since she was very little. We've been to Atlanta, Nashville, New Mexico, San Diego, Block Island, and Punta Cana. This time we were headed to Plymouth, MA, to visit my college roommate like we had done so many times before. Looking back it doesn't even seem possible that I was the one who ended up making us late. But I confess. It was me.

Michaela came down the stairs in a half-eyed haze and plopped herself down on the couch, hair so tangled and mangy she looked like she had been playing drums all night at Grateful Dead concert in between selling falafels and playing hacky sac. She opted for sleep instead of a shower. And her hair is wavy and curly, so this is what it does when it's not brushed. 

I took a good look at her. "I am NOT doing braids," I told her. It would take three bottles of Frizz Ease and 20 minutes just to get through the uncombed tangles sleep causes. Maybe another 10 for the braids. This was time we didn't have.
"I didn't ask you to do braids," she said. True.
"Is that all you have?" I asked. One bag. Seriously? One bag? I had been calling up the stairs for an hour and this is all she was bringing.

Time check. 9:50 a.m. I threw our bags in the back of the Volvo. "Hit the bathroom," I said. "It's a long drive. Get something to eat. Get up. Get off the couch!"
She convinced me Dunkin' Donuts was the way to go. Anything to get on the road. We headed out to the car. The car I hate because it drives like a truck.
"Can you grab the GPS under the seat?"
"It's not there."
"Maybe it's in the back." It wasn't there either.
Panic. I ran into the house to grill my husband. Maybe he took it out and put it in the other car.
He was waiting at the door. He knows I always come back in before getting on the road.
"What did you forget?"
"Where's the GPS?"
"I don't know, where you always keep it."
"It's not in the car."
"Then, it's stolen." He always thinks things are stolen.
"Are you kidding me!" I needed that for directions.
We spent the next half hour looking for the GPS while Michaela waited in the car.
Time check. 10:25 a.m. Now, we would hit beach traffic, my husband reminded me. Better take 84 instead of 95.
"Screw the GPS," I said. "I have to leave. Can you write down the directions? Wait, I'll call you from the road." I had to get going.

I have been to my friend's house a ton of times, but there's this rotary on 495 that always confuses me. That and the fact I always forget to go through Providence and take the wrong exit 3. With 84, I'd bypass all that but 84 was a new route for me. Everyone who knows me knows I have no sense of direction. I drive by my own exit all the time. I needed that GPS!
Ok, I am going to be honest. I am a winger. In all my optimistic preparation, I still just kind of go with the flow and whatever happens, happens. And this is very typical of what happens. Whenever I travel, I am always late. I always get lost. And I always have to call a million times for directions. Even if I bring them. One time I was looking at my directions to Plymouth (which were neatly written out) and they flew out the window. They literally flew out the window.

"Call John (my husband)," I told Michaela. First mistake.
"Put him on speaker phone and write down the rest of the directions."
Second mistake.
We couldn't hear him, and she was in no mood to take dictation.
And this is where I lost it. Third mistake.
"Why can't you just write down what he says? Why is that so hard?"
"WHAT-A? I couldn't even hear him! OMG, you are a crazy person. Just do it yourself."
"You can't talk to me like that. I will turn this car around."
"You can't talk to ME like that."
"You are stressing me out, and I don't want to feel stress when I have to drive three hours!"
"You are stressing ME out!"
"Stop talking!"
"You stop talking."
"STOP TALKING! You better not say even one more word. DO NOT TALK!
Silence.
More silence.
Five minutes of silence.

Contemplation. Hmmm. I wanted to have a fun mother-daughter road trip, just like our others. We used to have so much fun together before the teen years hit. Before I got remarried and had more kids. Before other people took the place of her, she always reminds me.
I turned and looked at her. I have her for only four more years then she's off to college, I thought. I miss her already. At the rate we're going, she'll probably only wave when she leaves. And right now she is still calling me Mommy. Who knows how long this will last? I need to enjoy her more,  I thought. She's a great  kid. I need to tell her more often.

Me, Michaela, now 14, and Lydia, now 3.
Time is flying.

I glanced in her direction. "Ok, I'm sorry for acting like a freak."
Nothing.
"Hello? I said I was sorry, so now you say you are sorry for being so rude to your mother."
Silence.
"Say you are sorry."
Nothing.
"Talk."
Nothing but the tires hitting the potholes.

"You better say something. TALK! START TALKING! NOW!"

It's official, I thought. I am crazy.

I turned to her and saw that familiar "Michaela smurk" spread across her face.

"You told me not to talk," she said.

I knew this was coming. "You have permission to say I am sorry to your mother."
"But I'm not sorry because you were rude."
"Say you are sorry, so we can move on with this stupid, ridiculous conversation that has already taken too much time off my life I will never get back."
"I am sorry, Mother." I wish you could have heard how she said it because it was so quintessentially Michaela. Mother sounds like Mutha, and there is the silliest look on her face which says, I won but I am letting you think you won.

We were only at the Hamden Tunnel on 15, twenty minutes into the drive. If this was the start of my weekend, I may as well get a flat tire and wait all day for AAA (been there!).

But the bickering stopped. And soon she fell asleep. I concentrated on the road, sang to the radio, and didn't get lost. We ended up having this awesome weekend with each other and with friends. Neither of us wanted to leave.

That night after everyone went to sleep, Michaela and I stayed up talking until 2 a.m.
It was great.
"Go to sleep. I'm tired of talking." I joked.
"Me, too. Good-night, Mommy."
"Good night, honey. I love you."
"I love you, too."
I went to bed thinking about my other two: the three year old and nine month old. It was only a few short years ago Michaela was that young.
It all goes by so fast—isn't that what they say?
Well, guess what? It's really true.