Shelter for the Bewildered

‘This place is like a community centre’ says Anna, her london accent chiming against the Dublin voices of the other teenagers gathering around the table.

‘It’s a shelter’ suggests Rachel.  ‘A shelter for the homeless.’

‘For orphans!’ adds Anna.

‘For the lost and bewildered,’ I join in.

My niece and nephew are over from London, a now annual trip for them, usually accompanied by another set of twin cousins, Eva and Louise.  But this summer has been busy; too busy for all my teenage relatives to squeeze us in, but the arrival of ‘the london cousins’ creates great excitement that resonates way beyond our house.  As soon as flights are booked, my guys are on snap chat and face time, forwarding the news to their tight networks, and there is a flurry of diary checking, whoops of glee to indicate the possibility of a continual presence during their stay, and bitter disappointment at the discovery of clashes with other holiday plans.

There has been a constant stream of young people through my doors and sitting at my kitchen table since the eagles landed.  Friends arrive throughout the day, sometimes to simply gather up more people for a game of footie, or a trip to Dun Laoghaire; other times to watch a match or play cards.  And of course teenagers need to be fed and fuelled. Countless pots of pasta, loaves of garlic bread, bowls of casserole and paella have been piled, loaded, scooped and swallowed; I’ve seen jars of biscuits and boxes of cereal demolished in seconds; bags of apples, bunches of bananas, nets of oranges disappear straight from the shopping bags, and the green bin is overflowing with the recyclable remnants of yogurt pots and juice boxes.

But of course it’s not just the required quantity of food that grows endlessly with all these young people; there’s the pile of towels waiting to be washed; the cupboard empty of glasses and cups;  the mound of runners and flung about bed linen…..They drive me crazy; infuriate me; leave me tired, impatient and frustrated, and I love every moment of them being here.

 

The teenage years are such a strange mix of innocence and emerging adulthood; growing self consciousness and total disregard for so many of those around them; determination to express individuality alongside their uniform clothes and hairstyles.  Heading to bed and leaving a gang of teenagers in the environs of a fairly substantial stash of alcohol, I have a moment of hesitation before stepping on the first stair.  Turning my head, I hear the sounds of the very energetic Monopoly game continuing: Laura buying everything she lands on; Patrick doing a relatively honest job as banker; Rachel trying to work out where the streets on the Dublin edition of the game are in relation to the handful of shops she knows in the city centre.   Dinner on another evening and I listen to the competitive dialogue as they try to work out who has the most difficult time at school – the english or the irish. ‘Our pass rate is 50%’; ‘we have to do more subjects’; ‘you have longer holidays’; ‘our teachers are crap’; ‘so are ours!’

Inevitably on many of these nights, the Karaoke machine comes out.  The boys have long exited by now, always hitting the sack long before the girls have run out of incredibly important and urgent conversations to be had. Giddy on lack of sleep, the singing hits increasingly higher notes, the giggling interupts the vocal activities at frequent intervals, and the team effort (ie quantity rather than quality), becomes the focus.

I miss the younger years with my children: the cuddles and hugs, their playfulness and readiness to smile, but these are good times too.  I’m more of an observer than a participant it’s true, and that’s OK.  I’m told these relationships are cyclical and that there will come another day when my children will willingly engage with me, talk to me, share things with me.  For now I’m happy to run a shelter for the bewildered.