The Plan is the Plan

“So, what’s the plan, Stan?” I asked of my three older teenage whippersnappers meandering behind me as we bounced along the sidewalk of 16th Street in Ocean City this past Easter morning. 

We had just finished munching down on holiday brunch—awful vegan hot coffee with almond milk and “ass” bowls. Yeah, you heard me. ASS bowls. Because none of us can say “ah-SAHHH-he" properly.  

The conversation with my twenty-year old daughter when she called me from her hotel room 510 to my hotel room 512 at that morning went something like this: 

“Yo, ma. What’s for breakfast? We’ve been up for hours. We haaaaaangry.” 

“Yo, daughter. You pick. I chose dinner last night. How about you adult and choose breakfast?” 

“Bruh. Okay... well, I don’t know what’s around here.” 

“Bruh. Okay... well, it’s called Google and I believe in you. I’ll be over there in about a ½ hour.” 

I hung up the phone quickly so as to avoid further protestations. 

I got into my shower with my own grumbling belly while conjuring images of luscious, tall stacked piles of soft Belgian waffles smothered to death by ripe strawberries and fluffy whipped cream. Ooooo! And then thought maybe, instead, I would splurge in a bath of rich, salty sausage gravy slathered over hot buttermilk rolls.  

Better yet... how about I break all da’ rules and get myself a platter of everything – eggs drowned in cheese, carby home fries, little sausage links with a side of crispy bacon, and hell yeah! - throw in three pieces of rye toast because why not? 

Calories don’t count on holidays. 

Easter brunch with my kids at the beach. 

My heart was full, gratitude abounded.

While I mindlessly bathed, I remembered, on this same day last year, how I had faced my daughters for the first time in five years. 

My sister likes to host big family shin-digs for the holidays though, admittedly, Easter tends to be one of the smaller of her famed gatherings. The egg hunt is a favorite among the kids, with the teens engaged in the festivities due to a large golden egg containing 20 bucks tucked away somewhere nearly impossible to find--usually requiring a bit of bravado to stick one’s hand in a beehive or under a mower blade. 

I would die if I had to put my hand down the garbage disposal. Sis can keep her money, and I will keep my hand, thank you very much. I saw that movie. 

Having returned home to Delaware just three weeks before, I took advantage of the family holiday and invited all five of my kiddoes to come to Aunt Jamie’s. On this first round, however, only Isabelle and Mirabelle answered the call, agreeing to come. 

A thousand feelings marched into my body like an army on Saturday night while I waited for them to arrive. 

Carrying guns of petrifying fear, spears of paralyzing doubt, a drum beat of timid yet electrical anticipation, these reactions wreaked havoc on my poor intestines turning me into an emotional food processor. 

Having dreamt of this moment for so long, I now wanted to vomit.  

My flight mode was activated. All systems were go! Let's go! Let’s... let’s... GO! 

But I could not. And I did not. 

Not for them and certainly not for me. My children deserved a mother who would stand and deal. To “mother up!” as my daughter had once admonished me to do. 

So, the girls finally arrived, pulled in the drive, and got out of the car. 

I was astonished. I stood in the driveway gaping.

How? How did I birth such... such beautiful young women? 

They were stunning. 

Belle with her long, dark wavy hair, and fair white, pale skin stood lithely - almost like a kind of fairy. I felt her presence almost luminous. She was tall like me. She had always been tall but never quite as tall. She was now my equal. 

Mira was... wow. My girl was leggy and towered over me at 6’. Her face still possessed some of her precious baby roundness. Lips full and red, eyebrows thick yet sculpted. Her hair, once a whitish blonde, was now straw-colored and straight.  

She still had that cute gap between her front teeth. 

But what struck me the most were both sets of eyes. All four were as blue as their mother’s. Bright and brilliant, I could not, in those first moments, stop from staring in awe. That they should carry this piece of me even yet, despite unrelenting time and thousands of miles of space, was a tiny miracle. 

Approaching timidly, unable to speak, eyes misted with water, I held myself and my battlement of emotions with a kind of disconnected grace unable myself to comprehend how I was still standing. 

I wasn’t sure whether to hug them or not. My body involuntarily sort of thrust itself forward with a strange viper-esque motion while my feet quickly withdrew, my brain rushing to figure out what was going on. I ended up awkwardly chest-bumping each of them as if we were wildly celebrating some incredible win.  

After this embarrassingly weird greeting, the girls went into the house to make their pleasantries to the rest of the family while I ducked into the nearby restroom weighing my options somehow concluding that upchucking yesterday’s dinner was a better choice than diarrhea since the potty paper level was too low to handle a good rear cleaning.  

I washed my face and looked in the mirror. 

Over those five absent years, I had met intimidating sheikhs and sheikhas, entertained ridiculously infantile celebrities, answered to fire-and-brimstone Directors of Finance, dealt with hundreds of impossible staff members, and deftly maneuvered thousands of insane guests in my line of work without batting an eye. 

And now I couldn’t handle two teenage girls. 

Isn’t it crazy? 

Proving the role of a Mother is a hell of a lot more arduous than the role of a Director. 

“Will they forgive me?”  

This was my question.  

“Will they understand?” 

This was my second question. 

But I knew there were many answers to give before I would ever have the right to ask the questions. 

We decided to go to town for coffee even though it was late. The house was full; the girls wanted some privacy to speak. Like a docile puppy, I climbed into the back of Belle’s Nissan Altima and made myself as small as possible while my mind raced through its therapy prompts trying to make itself bigger. 

Long before, I had read “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. It had helped me tremendously to learn how to start and carry conversations in the hospitality world.  

At the request of the hotel’s General Manager, I once had to escort the Ambassadors of Lebanon and Bahrain in the small but trendy elevator to our steakhouse 26 floors up in the sky. After a bit of stiff silence, I turned boldly, faced them and unabashedly asked, “So... how’s work going?” 

They cracked up laughing. “You are an American, aren’t you?” was the retort. 

I blushed sheepishly.  

I was then honored to be asked to sit at their table to have a chat while waiting for dinner to arrive. By the end of the evening, they each gave me their personal phone numbers and would later phone me directly whenever they required reservations. 

But suddenly, in this elevator-sized car, in this moment of unpleasantness, it seemed trite to say a simple thing like, “So... how’s work going?”. 

Instead, we rode in silence to Dunkin’ Donuts while I silently wilted. 

When we got to the shop, the girls paused in the car. Radio now quiet, wind from the windows suddenly still, Mira spoke first. 

“Well, Shane. Are you going to say anything?” 

Hearing my daughter call me by my first name was jarring. A little dagger of pain shot from my heart and spread through my veins, each beat thrumming in my ears. 

Blank.  

Nothing.  

I had nothing.  

Millions of tears spilled over the years, memorizing this future moment of a different me, I had always envisioned hugs and laughter, time melting off fading to black. I had imagined I would have a few questions to answer but the answers would be simpler, and then I would cry with my kids as we clung to one another, the air full of blissful reunion vibes wrapping us in a blanket of family warmth. 

But nope.  

Not happening.  

Sitting in a warm car, the trail of saying something gone cold. 

And they were waiting for an answer. 

Eventually I did speak. What I answered was from the now me, the woman struggling for balance between capable manager and estranged mother, suffering from electric lunacy coupled with practical logic.  

“Can I have a cigarette first?” I croaked.

I had only started smoking in Abu Dhabi at the age of 40. None of my children had never seen me smoke but, right now, bad mother or no, I needed help in the form of a sucker stick. 

“Oh! You smoke? Oh yeah. Cool!” Two vapes suddenly emerged. “We’ll join you.” 

It was then I realized, because they had also hidden their vapes... They were just as nervous as I was. 

Oooooooh! Epiphany! 

As we got out of the car, boom! It was all I needed. This one tiny connective nerve between us to give me back the power over my brain, my heart, my spirit, my energy. My words. 

Over a cigarette in the coffee shop parking lot, we started talking, my girls and I. 

They asked me questions, some easy, some hard. I gave answers. I let down every human defense. No ego, no pride, no excuses, no lawyerly justifications. I became a fountain of vulnerable truth. 

It saved me. 

Within the creases of explanations and reasons, recounting my journey with its almost unbelievable twists and unexpected turns, Isabelle and Mirabelle began to understand my perspective and started to make sense of my decisions. In turn, I actively listened to their stories, their thoughts and emotions and validated them at every corner.  

I apologized from the heart.  

I took their anger, held it with reverence and absorbed it with gladness. 

I took their sadness, hugged it with compassion and comforted it with love. 

And I took their disappointment, pulled it close with tenderness and embraced it with acceptance. 

We found each other.  

After hours of conversation, Mirabelle looked at me. 

“Are you going to leave again? When you figure out your life?” 

The answer was quick, a current direct from my heart. 

“No, baby girl. Momma’s not going anywhere. I am here to stay.” 

The boys and I reconciled on the 4th of July later that year when I was invited to join them in Ocean City for a beach day.  

I shat myself only once during the visit and thanked God there was a sea of water. 

Liam, my oldest, asked me why it took so long to return. I told him there were many reasons, but the main one was this dream I had of coming back on a white horse scooping them up to go live in a castle in a beautiful happy ever after. 

To which he replied, “Fuck your white horse, mom. All we ever wanted was you.” 

Me? 

The whole time all they wanted was me? 

Mothers have more power than we give ourselves credit for.  

In my roles over the years cleaning spit-up and dirty butts, washing vomited-on sheets, enduring food escapades, listening and smelling the torture of farts and burps to explaining to my young people the fluids ejected from their bodies as teens, I forgot I was their personal expert in knowledge and wisdom. 

In my absence, I had forgotten I was always their source of guidance.  

In my migration, I forgot I was their tower of safety and strength. 

But more than all this—more than knowledge, wisdom, guidance, safety and strength, over time, I had forgotten I was their external heartbeat of love. A mirror of affection by which they measured themselves presently and would in future. 

All my babies needed – had ever needed - was me. Shane.  

And here I was a year later stepping out of my hotel shower, putting on clothes, and heading across the hall to meet three of my children for Easter brunch at the beach. At their invitation. 

Which, as I said, was nothing like I had envisioned. That tasteless frozen custard-like substance laden with fresh fruits and crunchy granola drizzled with honey... as good as it was, my tastebuds rejected it vehemently insisting this was dessert and we needed to re-start our day at Layton’s Diner next door. 

And the coffee. OMG. Just, no. 

But my kids had chosen it, my momma heart was full and the food didn’t really matter. 

We left Pablo’s Bowls and headed towards what I think was 17th street with no real direction. Hence the question, “So, what’s the plan, Stan?” 

Isabelle, trailing behind me with Mira and Leif, responded without missing a beat and in such a matter-of-fact manner as to cause all of us to chuckle: 

“Mom. The plan is the plan we make on the way to the plan.” 

“That’s my random girl” I thought. She’s one who called me on the way to the airport a couple of months ago. She was getting on a plane. To go to London. Having never been on a plane. And when I asked, “Why London?”, she answered, “To give my friend a hug.” 

(Don’t tell her... but, along with those blue eyes, she got that impulsive streak from me.)  

As we neared the next intersection, I took advantage of a white walking sign and took a sharp right hand turn to head back to the boardwalk. 

“That’s perfect then. I hope the plan involves the beach ‘cause that’s where I’m planning to go” was my flippant response.

We had a wonderful Easter browsing through shops, finally find real coffee at Julia’s Cannoli. My belly was completely satisfied when we stopped at Thrasher’s fries. Twice. Fisher’s popcorn turned out to be overkill.  

We played skee ball and won a candy necklace.  

I took pictures of my kids from behind when they weren’t looking. 

‘The plan is the plan we make on the way to the plan.’ 

When I was little girl, I thought the plan was simple. Grow up, get married, have a home, birth children, raise them right, be a good citizen, pay taxes, retire and travel. Then die happy surrounded by loved ones. 

That’s not what happened; I think that rarely happens. 

The plan, for me, became a survival story littered with adult RAD (reactive attachment disorder), narcissistic PTSD, a lot of bad luck and a bunch of ill-timed manifesting.  

Somewhere along the way, I lost the original manuscript plan and quickly sat to write plan two. When that one burnt up, I jotted plan three down. But it wasn’t too long before that one imploded.  

Plan four seemed better than the others but... well, ended in disaster. 

I am currently on plan five which is to start over somewhere along the lines of plan two but keeping in mind all the lessons I learned in plans one, three and four. 

Because, in the end, I never did lose sight of the ultimate plan. 

Which is to die happy surrounded by loved ones. 

And I might have to change the plan again on the way to the plan but, this time, I’m not going anywhere. 

I’m here to stay.