April 14, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s 6:44am and I’m having some of my coffee (I’m back on coffee now and have ended my matcha era), and I’m blogging upstairs these days. My brother designed for me a custom built-in desk area and that’s where I’m blogging. I’m lucky.

The little one who is almost 18 ran out of the house without her shoes, and into the car with her father. Her Honors Ceramics class is going to LA on a field trip to the American Museum of Ceramics Arts (AMOCA) so they have a catch a bus from school, and had to leave earlier than usual. I wanted to see her outfit and see her off, but she was rushed and yelled from upstairs “Mommy, I HAVE TO GO!”

A teenage body in a blue hoodie and jeans rushed out and gave me a hug and apologized briefly, but was off before her grandmother and I could fully appreciate her. She’s off to a field trip, and soon she’ll be off to college to Harvard and Cambridge – where we are so happy she’ll be nestled for the next four years.

But I’m allowed to wallow. “Mommy, I HAVE TO GO!” And I stay at home with grandmother and grandfather, and the black poodle mix and her childhood memories. I stay home and keep myself busy taking care of other people’s children and continuing to work on climate projects. But my heart is with that teen and a twenty-year-old up at Berkeley.

It’s the universal truth of parenting in that when you succeed, you lose. You lose them to the world. As it should be. “Momma, I HAVE TO GO!” And mommy is crying on my blog because I don’t get to go with you.