“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
That’s one lesson I’ve learned from this end of summer jumble of work, no camp, no school, lots of stuff for working parents to do.
It’s a quote from one of the least likely philosophers of working parent happiness: Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist, hedonist, author of books like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” – from which the line was taken.
It came to me at a Tate McRae concert at Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. with my oldest daughter. For those who aren’t teenagers or parents of teenagers, Tate McRae is a tween/teen phenom. Her fans are called Tatertots, which is cute until I thought being there probably made me a TaterDad…
I have much respect for Tate McRae selling out MSG, but I probably didn’t add any of her songs to my workout playlist.
What I did do was observe my daughter who was so happy to be there. She knew all the words and she danced and sang along. She thanked me for getting the tickets for her birthday.
So what did I do? I’d bought the ticket, so I took the ride with her. I danced. I sang along. I relished the fun she was having.
I tried.
I stayed fully engaged in the night. I stood when she stood. I smiled, whooped and waved when Tate McRae began a new song. I was there.
I’ve tried to maintain this feeling on the quasi-vacation / quasi-crushing stress week before school starts.
It’s not been easy. Emails come in. People call who are trying to wrap things up before their weekend. You help someone with something serious, and it spirals into a quagmire like you never imagined and you’re taking calls when you should be relaxing with your family and when you come back to them you don’t even want to tell them what you’ve been talking about…
Yet you remember that moment – buy the ticket, take the ride – and you try to channel it.
This morning everything seemed to be going wrong. I was trying to let my wife sleep in – but that leads to all kinds of child-quieting contortions. Failure is more likely than success. Did I mention we have three dogs, all with different senses of the need to shake loudly before walking out of a room?
At 6:34am, when my 7 year old was accidentally awake, I pretty much thought the day was over. She would be exhausted.
I took her to drop my early riser off at an activity. But I also lamented the loss of crucial morning alone time.
When my 7-year-old asked me to play a board game, as I drank coffee and emptied the dishwasher, trying to keep her quiet so my wife could sleep, I said… yes! We played “Guess Who?” – a game where the other person tries to guess the person on the card you have hidden through a series of questions that eliminate descriptive traits. (“Is it a boy or a girl?” is everyone’s first question!)
While we played, I didn’t think of anything else. I just tried to guess her person. We played this for five, six rounds. It was pure joy.
So please, this Labor Day weekend, if you buy the ticket, take the ride.
