It was one of those weeks. 

You know the kind. The Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day weeks. The SpaceCamp weeks. The Deep Blue Sea weeks.  

A week where everything goes wrong.  

It started with my daughter, who plans to join her college scuba club. 

So I can live in abject terror for the next four years.  

Right? I mean, this is what kids do when they go to college, isn’t it? Terrorize their mothers with their unsafe behavior? Scuba diving. In Florida. OK. Yes. Sounds great. 

Just ask this guy in South Carolina. He nearly lost his arm to an alligator while diving. And he’s a whole state north of Florida. 

Everyone knows the alligators get worse the further south you go. Come on. 

I wanted us to get in one last dive before she left for school.  

The only day we could squeeze in the dive was the Saturday before we took my daughter to college. 

While we’re talking about scuba diving, here, guys, I’d just like to say I’m not a fan of my own publication glorifying scuba diving without even discussing it with me.  

You have to agree with me on everything, VISTA Today. Support all my fears.  

Sure, that list is extensive and exhausting, but, well, I don’t care.  

No more scuba diving heroics, guys. Scary scuba stories only. They exist. Trust me. They exist. I’m so good at finding them. 

Did — did you see the South Carolina alligator article above?  

Anyway, I know what you’re saying. Why schedule a dive four days before the kid leaves for college? Things must be chaotic. Isn’t that a bit intense?  

Have you even met me?  

If I’m not intense, you should check me for demonic possession — which is the one thing I find more fearful than scuba diving. 

It’s the lack of control, I think.  

At our dive site in Jersey, we unloaded our equipment. Dive bags and air tanks and wetsuits and weights. 

That was when we realized we didn’t have our regulators. 

You know, the things you breathe from.  

Have I mentioned the inability to breathe thirty feet underwater is what panics me most about scuba? It’s why I’ve reconsidered and am now moving demonic possession to second on my list of fears. 

I mean, the demon kind of needs you to breathe. 

With no way to dive, we packed up and headed home. 

The dive shop comped my dive — my next dive is considered paid for. I just need to schedule it. 

But my plan was only to dive until I got my daughter to college. At this point, college was all but a fait accompli. Why would I ever want to dive again? 

“I think you should stick with it,” my husband said. 

“It’s an expensive habit,” I pointed out. 

“Oh, I know,” my husband said. 

Yeah.  

I’m an expensive habit, too. 

Three days later, I headed back to Jersey with my son. He had a part as a background actor in a movie.  

Now, the crew told us filming could take twelve hours. 

I ignored that bit because I didn’t want to deal with it. 

We hopped aboard NJ Transit to Rahway. I set up camp in Rahway’s lovely little library.  

Hours later, my son texted me to say filming hadn’t even begun yet — and would likely go until one in the morning. 

I was leaving at four that morning, driving fourteen hours for the first leg of the college trip. 

Also, nothing in Rahway is open that late. Where would I go while my son filmed?  

I considered riding NJ Transit back and forth. Or taking it to Times Square, where M&M’s New York is open until midnight. 

Can you imagine what M&M’s New York looks like at midnight? It’s probably awesome. 

Or awful. 

I never found out. I told my son we had to leave, that he couldn’t fulfill this dream, this possible start to an acting career. I wanted to spend time with my daughter on her last night as a full-time resident in our home. 

I needed to pack. I needed to sleep. 

We went home, the weight of a second New Jersey failure on my shoulders. 

But today, I write this from a café — in New Jersey, of course — while my son is at acting camp up the street. Schedule your dive is number three on today’s to-do list. My daughter is sending me pictures from college. Her smile is joyful.  

Maybe my failures are confined to that week. 

Yeah. Let’s go with that.