Contact in Motion: Everyday for the last three weeks our daughter calls me. This is new. She has had a cell phone for probably four years but never has she called me with anything remotely resembling this frequency of contact. Probably ninety percent of the calls are made while in transit. She is on the school bus termed the “conga line” or in the dorm van. In the background I hear the jabberings of her school or dorm mates, and an occasional “drama in the dorm” outburst, either by our daughter or someone else’s daughter. Something like “leave me alone”! Or “Oh my god, don’t tell me what to do.”

I am never sure if they want her to get off the phone or if she wants them to be quiet while she is on the phone. In any case, I don’t get involved.

Destination Future: What strikes me is the metaphor! Calling while in transit speaks to how she organically emulates the process that is unfolding. She always calls with a question, sometimes about meetings she knows are planned, funding she heard was pending, apartments that were to be viewed, or family outings, her brother’s return date from a trip, movies she saw, trailers for movies she wants to see. And she always asks about her dog. “How is Waggy”?

Readying Herself: She is getting ready for her future. It blows my mind how in sync she is with everyone and everything despite not being an expert on calendar dates and time. Nope, she is an expert on momentum. She knows that her life is about to change, big time. And she wants to make sure she and everyone else are prepared.

Graduation Gifts: And of course there is the small matter of  the graduation gift: “I am thinking about what I want people to get me.” Yep, she is preparing for her future, with a gleam in her eye, and her eye on the “stuff.” My typical “mother” suggestion went something like, “well, you will need things for your apartment, sheets and towels”. She liked that idea. Destination Future, here she comes.

©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W 2011