Musings at Altitude

I was reminded this weekend of how mobile and how connected we really are.  I finally got home after an exciting adventure with the airlines on Friday evening, and fortunately, I was home about 15 minutes before my 14 year old got home from her first homecoming game.  I rushed home from the airport to a very dark house, with my wife out in North Carolina, my son out somewhere (he never says where), and my 14 year old at the football game.  By the time I got off the plane, I was text messaging my 14 year old and even exchanging calls with the father of her friend who was retrieving them from the game.  While I was in the cab from the airport to my home, the friend’s father gave in to the constant badgering of the girls and took them to Arby’s for a late night snack, which bought me just enough time to make it home and pick up a little bit before they arrived. 

My daughter, taking advantage of my wife being out of town, used text messaging to quickly arrange for her friend to spend the night at our house, and then to coerce me into also agreeing to taking them out to breakfast the following morning.  Since this was homecoming weekend, I gave in very quickly (even for me), but then using text messaging, coerced a friend who was visiting from out of town to come to breakfast with us so I wasn’t flying solo as a parent with these two teenage girls.

At breakfast, we talked homecoming and boys, and because I had a friend with me, we talked fishing and hunting as well.  Since he had been hunting just two weeks before and had killed a black bear in Alaska, he got lots of “oooo, that’s disgusting” from the girls, but they quickly diverted their attention back to other things of even greater importance – like could they lure the balloon man over to make them embarassing balloon hats. 

Since I still had the very stressful task of making sure my 14 year old’s needs were met in preparation for homecoming, I had already started the high volume stream of text messages going between my wife and I.  She was out in North Carolina participating in a “walk for the cure” for Ovarian Cancer, and although I was desperately short on confidence in helping my 14 year old, I was very proud of my wife for flying out for the walk.

After breakfast, we said good-bye to my friend who joined us for breakfast and dropped off my daughter’s friend at her home.  We then headed straight to the store for the apparently very normal homecoming day routine of buying earrings, necklaces, nail polish, and whatever else may have been needed to dress the part.  While my 14 year old was perusing the jewelry, I went to find black safety pins.  One of the most disturbing messages I got from my wife as she was leaving was that I would have to get some pins in order to pin up my 14 year old’s dress.  My immediate response was, “huh?”  I consider myself a fairly good father, but there are things that really light the “oh my gosh” fuse, and one of those would be, “you need to find safety pins to pin up your daughter’s dress”.

As I headed to the sewing section, I quickly found the safety pins, but they only had gold and silver.  My daughter said she needed black, but no joy…no black safety pins.  Using my “what do I do now” sense to sharpen my problem resolution skills, I quickly realized that we could paint the safety pins black using some paints found two aisles over in the craft section.  As you might imagine, I felt pretty good about myself as I went and found my 14 year old and told her my solution.  She quickly said, “ok”, and then asked, “which pair of earrings do you like?”  The quivers quickly returned, and my sense of accomplishment on the safety pins was immediately replaced by “what’s the right answer to that question?”  In the absence of having a real preference, I quickly said “you pick” and then said, “hurry up, we have to go.”

My joy on the problem resolution of the safety pins lasted for about 10 minutes till my wife got ahold of me and said (1) the paint won’t work and (2) the safety pins won’t show anyway.  Nothing like being totally deflated, though I must admit that I felt pretty good about the effort I made!

Later that afternoon, I dropped my daughter off at a friend’s house for final preparation (hair, makeup, and then getting dressed), and I headed off to a retirement dinner that I couldn’t miss.  Although I fully realize that she went to the homecoming with a bunch of friends, every parent worries when their child goes to homecoming…it’s just what parents do. 

During the middle of the dinner though, she sent me a picture of her at the homecoming, and I was stunned at how grown up she looked, but I was comforted in knowing that all was well based solely on the smile on her face.  When I got home later that evening, I anxiously waited for her to be dropped off, and when she walked in with the dress and the heels, with the earrings, the necklace and the nail polish, and with the hair all fixed up, I hugged her tight a couple of times, told her how beautiful she looked, and said good night.  I then went to my room and sat down and realized that my youngest child was now very much growing up and that these next few years would be full of anxiety beyond belief as she now enters those years where her heart will be uplifted at times and broken at others, where she’ll be influenced heavily by forces outside the family but hopefully fall back on the teachings and encouragement from the family, and where she’ll make good decisions and sometimes make mistakes but regardless feel the love and embrace of her family throughout.

I’m already back on the road again, but I was very blessed to have those 30 hours at home.  Even with the anxiety of being a Dad trying to help prepare his daughter for homecoming, I have to smile in knowing how well I performed under pressure and how special she looked as a result!  Of course, I also have to admit that I really had nothing to do with it, but thankfully, my wife has raised a daughter fully capable of taking care of herself and making herself look amazingly beautiful for these special events!  That makes my job so easy, but does nothing for the anxiety!