Sudden Plans

As with most high school kids, Alyssa’s social life seems to have developed a life of its own lately. Which is great, right?

But wait. Alyssa also has a mom who is going through chemo and doesn’t always feel well and she has a dad, who, while wonderful and helpful and awesome before 7pm, tends to pass out on the couch by 7:10pm.

One of Lyss’s new friends is a junior. A junior who drives. Yay!

Yay?

Sure, great. New friend can take Lyss to the required basketball games at which the band must play and bust out the pep.

The problem comes when Alyssa’s mom wants to go to bed at 9:30 on a Friday night after she’s had chemo the previous Tuesday. And yet, she actually can’t because Alyssa is not home yet from the basketball game that started at 7:00pm and should have probably ended at 8:30 at the latest. And Alyssa is not answering her phone. Why does she even have a phone if she doesn’t answer the damned thing?

Alyssa’s mom doesn’t feel like she can go to bed until she knows where Alyssa is and when Alyssa will be home. I mean, Alyssa is still only fourteen even if she does have friends who have driver’s license and CARS for Pete Sakes!

When Alyssa finally texts her mom to say that two of her friends are ‘bored’ and want to hang out, her mom is annoyed. But she responds with, “Where? You need to call me.”

Alyssa finally calls her mom fifteen minutes later and they talk. The friends want to hang out at a friend’s house in town. The parents are home and are okay with these last-minute plans.

Alyssa’s mom wants to know when Lyss will be home. Lyss doesn’t know.

Her mom decides for her. “You can hang out until eleven. Then you need to be home. I’m tired and you’re fourteen.”

Alyssa, smart girl that she is, agrees to be home at 11:00.

Mom settles in, all achy and yuck, to wait until 11:00 to go to bed. She’s not thrilled about it but vaguely remembers being a teenager about a million years ago and wants her daughter to enjoy this time of her life.

But there will be a conversation when the teenager gets home that evening. Or maybe it will wait until morning when Mom feels a little better and is rested.

The conversation, when it happens, goes well and Alyssa understands. She gets why her mom needs to know where she is and needs some sort of idea of when she’ll be home. She remembers that she’s fourteen (sure, she’ll be fifteen in a month but still…)

Then…THEN!!! Sunday evening rolls around.

It’s 7:20. Alyssa asks if Funniest Home Videos is on that night.

I (I know I’m changing from third person to first person when referring to myself…I don’t care.) pause as I’m washing dishes to tell her that yes, it’s on right that very minute.

“What?” she exclaims. “I thought it started at 8:00.”

“It has been starting at 8:00 but tonight it went back to a start time of 7:00.”

“Why?” she demands to know, like I’m privy to the scheduling reasons of ABC.

I shrug and wash a plate.

She then said, rather hesitantly, “Well, I kind of wanted to know if Nina could come over and watch Funniest Home Videos.”

“Tonight?” I asked.

See, let me pause here in this narrative and mentioned that I consider myself an outgoing introvert. I can be social and friendly but I get absolutely no energy from other people. Other people, even my own beautiful, loving family, suck my energy dry and I NEED alone time to re-energize. So having people over saps me.

But I do realize that teenagers thrive on friends and spending time with said friends. And so…

Lyss sort of hung her head and appeared to almost wish she hadn’t asked the question but she didn’t take the question back. She nodded and waited for my answer.

I mentioned the sudden plans to Tom. He started to get loud. I told him that I thought we should allow it that night but going forward, Alyssa needed (she was in earshot, listening to this entire conversation) to give us more than twenty minutes’ notice if/when friends were coming over.

I informed her, as I said, she was RIGHT THERE, that we’d allow the visit from Nina that night but going forward, if she asked for such a thing in the future, the answer would be no. If she wants to have company, she needs to give us at least a few hours’ notice, preferably making such plans a day in advance if possible.

I know that teenagers are notorious for deciding at 6pm that they’re bored and deciding to hang with friends at 6:30 that same night.

But I am no longer a teenager and I don’t want to deal with such sudden plans. I don’t feel good enough these days to put up with those kinds of shenanigans.

And I will use the “You know, ordinarily it wouldn’t be a big deal but…chemo!” excuse with much liberty these days. I have to deal with all the side effects of chemo, I should get at least the smallest benefits (other than the, hopefully, never having cancer BIG main effect of it…)

Anyway, all this to say that teenagers and their sudden changes of plans might lead me straight to a padded cell yet.