Leaving the Nest

You forget to eat, and when you do remember, it’s a frozen pot pie you half consume and then shove in the refrigerator, where it sits like an open wound until I feed it to the dog.

Speaking of Daisy, how will you exist without the little beast greeting you after school, bringing you headless sparrows, giving you walks and otherwise filling your days with joy?

Your wallet – the 12th in a series? – is still missing.

My guess is that it will show up in a dirty puddle this spring, in the street where you helped get the van unstuck during the blizzard, or in the park where you played snow Frisbee – if that’s what you really did that afternoon.

In six months you’ll be gone.

Your new home – barring some catastrophic event like the Decider’s waging another war – will be a college dorm in a distant galaxy where every routine you’ve ever known will be turned on its head and alien life forms will confound and thrill and maybe terrify you.

You’ll be overwhelmed with choices. Friends you’ve had your whole life will be scattered.

New responsibilities and opportunities will whip you like a category 5 hurricane.

And in less time than it took you to go from diapers to big-boy pants, you’ll learn exactly what Thomas Wolfe meant when he said you can never go home again.

But enough about you.

It’s me I’m worried about.

Who will program my car radio?

Who will install anti-virus software on my computer? Who will remind me to hit control-alt-delete when I gum up the works and start to panic?

Who will download photos and keep our crappy printer running?

Who’s the only one who understands algebra in our household?

Who will keep me current with the latest hip-hop and rap stars and cover my ears when their lyrics get too raunchy?

Who will apprise me of the latest expressions, like true that (“I agree with you”), word (“I agree with you”), weak! (“poor effort or performance”) and lame (see weak.)

And when I no longer have the privilege of dropping you off at school, where in the world will I get my fashion cues?

Where else can I see flip-flops and T-shirts when there’s 12 inches of snow on the ground? Black stilettos paired with animal-print micro-minis? Ballet slippers with calf-length leggings? Cargo pants so baggy a sustained wind could launch the wearer into the next block? Denim skirts so brief they’d be called belts if they were on anyone other than a 90-pound high school girl?

Oh, I haven’t even started.

Who’ll take out the garbage once a month, whether it’s needed or not?

What will I do with all my loose cash when I don’t have to fund your out-of-state trips with the debate team?

Who will drain all the milk cartons in the refrigerator?

Whom will we work crossword puzzles with at dinner?

Who will stand up for libertarians, question the Federal Reserve and challenge the conventional wisdom about global-warming sources?

Whom will we have to torture every morning when he won’t get up because he’s decided 2 a.m. is a reasonable bedtime?

Who will plunder the kitchen, as you did last night, and use all my bottles of food coloring in a project for English literature that entails breaking a coffee mug and reassembling it to symbolize the fractured society represented in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel I’ve never heard of.

How we will miss you.

But an empty nest is writ.

Bear with me as you get your wings.