I know.
I know they keep you awake at night long after the feedings have ended.
I know they make your heart melt and break it an hour later.
I know they literally came out of you and, hopefully, someone you loved for a minute or a lifetime—but you may doubt it at times because they quickly become amazing and completely baffling creatures with their own unique personalities.
I know they’re supposed to rebel at some point.
We’ve reached that point, I suppose.
And yet, it almost took me by surprise.
Mark hasn’t been “my” Mark for almost a year now. It started slowly, almost insidiously—so many sighs, so few words uttered in his new deep voice, his bedroom door suddenly closed more often than not, even though he used to take over the entire living room.
On the plus side, Feng regained access to the TV and the couch for the first time in twelve years.
On the downside, we have no idea what he is doing in his room. Do I really want to know? Probably not. What filters through the door and walls is the sound of endless hours of Red Dead Redemption, played loudly online with friends.
“You probably don’t even know what it is… You like, reading books and stuff.”
“I played video games before, Mark.”
“You had a Game Boy. You played what… Tetris?”
Well, yeah. Still. I’m not a video game virgin. I played The Sims too, and Civilization III!
Of course, I’m arguing with him in my head because there’s no point trying to make my case. I’m boring. Irrelevant. I can’t relate. Obviously, I’ve never been 13 years old. I just don’t get it.
At first, I thought Mark had stopped talking only to me. Maybe he was annoyed with me. Maybe I wasn’t good enough as a mother—an easy assumption to make if you’re my brain and you’re lying awake at 4 a.m. wondering not whether but how many times you screwed up on the job.
But then I realized he wasn’t talking to Feng either. He stopped paying attention to “our” world too. He spent the year completely absorbed in his eighth-grade world—not academically, mind you, but mostly in his Snapchat group.
Since we couldn’t both suck that badly, it occurred to me that he had just entered the phase parents fear most after the terrible twos—the teenage years.
Holy shit, I wasn’t prepared for this version of Mark.
Initially, I thought we’d be okay because I’m good at listening, talking things through and finding solutions—mostly for other people, mind you.
I just forgot that teens don’t talk. They mumble or shout. Oh, and reasoning isn’t their strength.
I have no idea what Mark wants.
I doubt he does either.
Every day, I want to strangle him like Homer Simpson strangling Bart—“Why, you little!”—and hug him because he is breaking my heart as he tries to tackle all the baffling stages and experiences that life keeps throwing his way.
I sympathize. Being a teen sucks.
It’s not my fault, though.
Emotions are running high this summer. Some days, I can’t get through to him. He constantly has (my) earbuds in, most likely listening to Gorillaz. An entire day can be ruined because his hair is curling the wrong way. Everything is boring. Everything is pointless. He doesn’t smile or laugh. No matter what I say, suggest or do—even when I mean well—it’s wrong. And no matter how hard I try, it’s never good enough.
Then, the next day, when I naturally assume he won’t talk, he suddenly wants to talk, “unless I’m too busy to listen.”
I’m all ears, hoping for a real conversation—perhaps even some insight into his brain.
“Do you think my high school has a vending machine?”
“Mark, it’s July, we’re in France, and believe it or not, I was not a student at your school. So I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Do you want me to STARVE?”
DING! Minus one point for the Mother of the Year Award. Oh well. I think society disqualified me when I dropped him off at a bar alone to watch a World Cup game, with instructions to walk home before 1 a.m. Or was it when he really pissed me off with his attitude in Saint-Gilles and I told him to go his own way for the day and be back at the train station at 5:40 p.m.?
I’m a terrible mother.
Clearly, Mark doesn’t need me anymore.
Oh wait, maybe he does. “Hair” is my new speciality—both body hair and head hair. I never thought I would teach “Shaving 101” workshops in my mum’s bathroom—shaving what, exactly?—but here we are. And his hair has become the most important thing ever. It can’t be cut. It has to be styled the right way—a method yet to be understood by yours truly, but hey, I’m trying.
And just yesterday, when we were having yet another deep conversation about his hair and changing schools for Grade 9, he stopped in front of the store downstairs.
“Can you…”
“What?”
“Can you buy me a lollipop?”
Yes, Mark. I can buy you a lollipop.
And we can still bounce like crazy on what Feng nicknamed the “jump jump”—On a marché sur la lune, one of the old Voyage à Nantes installations, which featured a giant fake moon and craters with trampolines.
This is where we ended up on one of the hottest nights of the year in Nantes. It was 43°C, so Mark went out by himself to buy food and packed us a picnic. He ate in silence, then handed me a blue earbud.
We connected while taking pictures of the sunset and walking around the Île de Nantes.
He is still “my” Mark.
Just a work in progress.
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