Another Way to Ruin Your Day

My daughter spent her holiday President’s Day weekend last week camping with friends in Big Sur. They arrived late Friday evening after a long drive up from Los Angeles. She texted me that she arrived safely, and then I didn’t hear anything more from her the rest of the weekend.

Radio silence.

I am spoiled, I guess, because I am used to daily contact with her. Not that we talk everyday. But we exchange a text, or a Snapchat, or (the newest app that she encouraged me to sign up for) a “Be Real” moment, where you snap a photo of whatever you are doing at the time that the app sends you a prompt. Through “Be Real,” I get a glimpse of the ordinary moments of her days: when she is at Trader Joe’s shopping for groceries, or walking to class, or sitting in her room on her bed reading. She can also see me: cutting carrots in the kitchen or trying to start the fire after a long day away.

I like “Be Real.”  The easy contact is regular and comforting.

I knew that cell phone service on the coast can be spotty. I knew that her phone might run out of battery (and I mentally chastised myself for forgetting to buy her a solar cell phone charger for Christmas. We talked about that and decided it would be a good purchase. But I never followed through.)

I wasn’t too concerned when I didn’t hear from her Saturday. Or Sunday. But by Monday? I was anxious to connect again. I worked Monday. Had four massages. Confess that I was distracted as the afternoon wore on. Wondered if my clients could sense the stress in my hands, as my phone stayed silent, no text notifications coming through.

Thought a lot about when I should reasonably expect to hear from her.

Decided that if they checked out of the campground at noon (I went online to see what time checkout was), that she should be back in cell phone range with a charged phone by 2:00 pm or so.

But maybe it could be sooner?

My phone stayed silent.  So I tried to focus on my clients (really I did) but as my mind wandered, here are a few things that I imagined:

She fell off a cliff because that is something that happens on the Northern California coastline. These incidents make the news every so often. A sleeper wave came up and swept her into the sea and none of her friends knew how to contact me so that is why I haven’t heard from her.

Also, I actually did not know who was going with her on this trip. She said it was members of her UCLA hiking club, but how did she know this for sure?  It could be any group of random people posing as students.

Maybe the person who did the driving is a maniacal driver and didn’t have a lot of practice on difficult roads like Highway 1, and maybe they sailed off into the ocean and it will be days before the car is found.

Who are the members of the UCLA hiking club anyway? Are we sure these people are trustworthy? And why don’t I have any of their contact information? And since they don’t have my contact information, how would they ever get in touch with me if there was an injury or accident?  How did I let this happen, that I know so little about the people who are becoming her people?

In between clients, I checked the traffic report to make sure there were not any fatal accidents on the route that they would be traveling (There was one injury accident somewhere near the campground. Looked like traffic was backed up and moving slowly). I logged into her bank account to see if there had been any activity on her debit card. I was relieved that there had been: a few small charges at Big Sur restaurants over the last few days. Which at least proved that she hadn’t fallen into the ocean on her first day out. Or that she hadn’t been murdered and her debit card stolen, because if that had happened, surely the bad guys would have charged more than $4.86 at a souvenir shop.

I kept working, but had my phone (which always plays appropriate spa music) where I could see it, in case a text came through.

It did not.

Not at 2 pm. Not at 2:30.

Finally, at 3:18 pm, a text arrived.

“Hey Mom! All is fine, just finally was able to charge my phone again.”

(I think that (intuitive person that she is) she might have sensed the rising panic in my text messages, which had morphed from “Hope you are having a great time!” to  “Please let me know when you are on your way home!”)

After I graduated from college, I went to Europe with a friend (who was a boy) and two of his friends (a boy and a girl). We were gone two months. I called my folks two or three times during the entire time we were away.

I don’t think that my Mom and Dad ever expressed to me that they worried at all.

And I was in another country.

For months.

Also, in college, I generally only talked to my folks once a week, usually on Sunday afternoon on the pay phone in my dorm hallway. It would ring, and one of my floor mates would answer it, and they would come knock on my door and get me, and I would talk to my folks in the lounge.

My daughter was out of cell phone contact for two and a half days, and I was a freaking ninny.

There’s some kind of bigger lesson here.

Maybe we have been spoiled by the ease and speed of contact. There’s no need to wonder if somebody is OK for long; just shoot them a text and find out.  Maybe the instant access that we have to news (especially troublesome news) has made us more worried, less secure.

In the end, she was fine. She had a marvelous weekend.

In the end, I was fine. But I sure was unnecessarily stressed and worried for most of my day Monday.

Life constantly gives us opportunities for growth, no?

I still have a lot to learn.