Last week, the teenagers were away on a trip for five days. They are in transition year, so their lives are currently a heady mix of travel adventures, work experience, creative projects and community service. One of them came back from the nursing home they visit once a week, their whole being animated by the playful and rewarding interactions they\u2019d had that day with people 60 years older. <\/p>\n
Transition year is one of the best Irish inventions. It\u2019s up there with Sudocreme. Sometimes I think we should ditch the Leaving Certificate<\/a> and make the whole of secondary school<\/a> one long, illuminating, growth-inducing transition year. Just in case the current Minister for Education is reading and looking for tips.<\/p>\n The teens were away without us, which meant my husband and I were alone in the house rehearsing for the empty nest phase. We learnt a few things. The empty nest phase will mean far fewer incidents of tripping over crocs and uggs in the hall. The person who does the laundry (not me, obviously) remarked with some relief that when the nest is eventually empty, when the teens are 35, say, there will be a lot less wrangling with variously coloured hoodies. I\u2019ve never really wrangled with a hoodie, but I can see how it might get tedious after a while.<\/p>\n [\u00a0A sick joke is being played on all of us \u2013 we\u2019re being infantilised by convenience techOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n It was quiet during those five days. Too quiet. I kept having that feeling you get sometimes where you think you\u2019ve forgotten something really important but can\u2019t put your finger on what exactly it is. Turned out, I missed tripping over abandoned shoes. I thought their absence would be a relief, a break, a bit of time to come back to ourselves. And it was in a way, but I missed things, like making dinner for four. One evening, I accidentally made a huge pot of pasta and sauce. The giant pot of penne sat comically in the middle of the dinner table between us. Two days later, we were still eating the leftovers.<\/p>\n My husband went up North for Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a> to see his mother Queenie. He really loves their mother-son time. They visit charity shops together and he does all the little jobs she needs doing. They talk about mops and the ham you can only get in the Post Office, and who has died and who is getting married. To the disgust of our daughters we don\u2019t believe in Valentine\u2019s Day as a couple, but when I woke up alone on February 14th, I felt a small pang. The pang was eradicated by anticipation. I had been craving solitude, I realised. I wanted to be romantic, but with myself. <\/p>\n I could have done anything that day. I thought about a big cycle ride along the coast. I imagined myself perched for hours over good coffee by a window in a hotel in town, people-watching, and listening to other people\u2019s lives. In the end I spent the whole day in bed reading a book. I did not get dressed. It was bliss. <\/p>\n When I told my sister Rachael this, she was amazed. I know there are people in the world who have never spent a day in bed unless they are ill. These people can\u2019t even fathom such a thing. But trust me, spending a whole day in bed not answering your phone and reading is uniquely restorative. The young call it bed-rotting I think, which makes it sound like a bad thing. \u201cI got out of the bed to go to the bathroom,\u201d I clarified for Rach. \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t think you\u2019d have a bed pan,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n [\u00a0R\u00f3is\u00edn Ingle: I left social media two years ago but I wonder would my life be better if I went backOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Hanging out with myself became a theme of the teenager\u2019s temporary absence. I took myself on a solo date. I went to Edel Coffey<\/a>\u2019s book launch for her third novel In Glass Houses. She cried in her speech while talking about the kindness of her husband, and it made me think of the kindness of my husband. And of Miriam O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s<\/a> wish for her daughters, as expressed in her wonderful memoir, that they find \u201cSteady Eddies\u201d as partners. \u201cSteady Eddies\u201d who don\u2019t mind doing the laundry I would add to that. <\/p>\n After the book launch, I went to see Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a> in Marty Supreme<\/a> on my own. God, I loved this crazy, original film, the kind they don\u2019t seem to make any more. It had me cheering and cringing and startling out of my chair. It made me laugh out loud and wave my arms about. I was entranced. And sorry when it was over. But it has a perfect ending, so that helped. I\u2019ll go and see it again. What a film.<\/p>\n Anyway, the teenagers will be back soon. It will not be long before I return to grumbling about their shoes in the hall and the empty cereal bowls in random places and the endless analysis of Love Island. But mostly I will be remembering that poem by Seamus O\u2019Neill and hoping they don\u2019t go away again for a while.<\/p>\n Bh\u00ed subh mhilis (There was sweet jam)Ar bhoschrann an dorais (On the door handle)Ach mh\u00fach m\u00e9 an corra\u00ed (But I quenched the anger)Ionam a d\u2019\u00e9irigh, (That rose in me,)Mar smaoinigh m\u00e9 ar an l\u00e1 (Because I thought of the day)A bheas an boschrann glan (That the handle will be clean)Agus an l\u00e1mh bheag (And the little hand)Ar iarraidh. (Missing\/Gone.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, the teenagers were away on a trip for five days. They are in transition year, so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92139,93,61,60,3184,47233,1786,45578,28205,38188],"class_list":{"0":"post-316255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-edel-coffey","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-leaving-certificate","13":"tag-miriam-o-callaghan","14":"tag-parenting","15":"tag-roisin-ingle","16":"tag-second-level","17":"tag-timothee-chalamet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}