It is 9:30 PM and my husband and I have just finished watching Black Swan at the theatre. We don't go to the movies often but when we do, we generally have nothing to worry about. Until recently, we were responsible only to ourselves. Our pets don't mind if we head to the movies and turn our phones on silent. The garden can hang while I'll power through a box of junior mints before the previews are over so I don't have to share with Jerry. Nothing of serious consequence would happen before if I disconnected from my phone for a few hours.
No more.
Recently, my husband and I have become parents. Not in the traditional sense: we skipped pregnancy, diapers, the first day of school, and even the first day of high school. We just got right into the trenches, I guess.
I am a Mommy-friend (never Mom) to a seventeen-year girl whom I am proud to call my daughter because I love her like one, even if it confuses the hell out of people because I'm clearly not old enough to biologically be so and even if she maintains (we encourage this) a relationship with her birth-mother. The circumstances of our relationship are irrelevant; V. fits into our family as though she was born to be here.
How do parents deal with screwing-up?
V. spent the weekend away from us for the first time since Thanksgiving. Jerry and I saw this as a chance to go to a bar downtown and then to the movies, as bars haven't been a place where we have gone for dinner since V. moved in with us. I have a hard time winding-down and being fully focused on anything; but this time I sat in the theatre focused wholly on the delicious combination of choclate and mint.
This was my first parental error, surely not my last.
V. needed us, badly, while we were in the theatre. With our phones on silent, we missed her attempts to get ahold of us while the movie was playing. When the lights came on, I checked my phone right away, only to see that V. had tried to get in touch with us nearly two hours ago. My heart sank.
The situation has been resolved, but the guilt I feel over not being there for her when she needed it has not. The downside to skipping the baby aspect to parenting is that we've also skipped all the baby-steps that prepare us for these kinds of situations. I doubt a "real" new mom would go to the movies and forget to check their phones during the movie to make sure everything is well with her child. Given the circumstances of bringing V. into our lives, her age, and where she was this weekend, I didn't have a gut instinct to check my phone.
I really need to find that instinct.
Jerry and I have been very lucky in our transition from DINKS to parental-figures (for the record, Jerry doesn't have the title "daddy-friend" because that's really, really creepy...). Being a super-planner and over-thinker has helped, for once. I think that's why I'm so angry with myself for making such a boneheaded and (albeit accidently) selfish mistake. I should have just known to check in.
There have been too many errors caused by others in V.'s life already. Maybe I'm underqualified in terms of life-experience to be the support she needs. How do I know I'm not one of the problems?
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