Smartmom is getting used to the idea. In fact, she’s all for it. Sort of. It’s just that she isn’t sure what it means exactly. But if Teen Spirit wants to do it …

Smartmom is even getting good at answering the question frequently asked by friends and family.

“So where does Teen Spirit want to go to college next year?”

Smartmom doesn’t even stutter anymore. She just comes right out and says it:

“Teen Spirit is taking a gap year!”

A gap year? The faces of friends and family get all quizzical and weird. Most don’t have a clue what she’s talking about. So Smartmom is called upon to explain.

“No, it’s not a year working at the Gap. A gap year is the newfangled phrase for what people used to call taking a year off before going to college.”

Friends and family smile. Some even pretend it’s a good idea, a great way to grow up a little and have an adventure.

Smartmom even had some high school friends who did it. There was her high school boyfriend who spent a year on a kibbutz in Israel. Another friend spent a year on a sailboat.

Everything turned out fine. They ended up at good colleges with a better sense of themselves and what they wanted to study in college. One runs a hedge fund, and another has his own woodworking business.

Even Hepcat tried to take a year before going to college. He was all set to live and work on board the Schooner Sophia in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the boat needed repairs and it was going to be months before Hepcat could come on board.

Sadly, Hepcat’s plans for an exciting adventure were foiled. Instead, he went to a local community college in California and eventually transferred to Bard College in Upstate New York

And the rest is history.

Taking a year off before college is a bold thing to do. It isn’t easy to get off the conveyor belt of what all your friends are doing and what your family is urging you to do.

You gotta go college! You don’t want to spend the rest of your life sitting on a milk crate in front of the Korean market on Garfield, do you?

But that didn’t stop Teen Spirit, who tends to dance to the beat of his own drum anyway. Boom. Boom. Boom. Plus, he is applying to college — he’s not that rebellious. It’s just that once he gets in he’s going to defer admission.

A bunch of his friends are already doing it. One friend, who graduated from Brooklyn Tech last year, is working full time In Manhattan and sharing an apartment in Park Slope with a friend. Another friend is in South America teaching English as a Second Language.

You can imagine that Hepcat and Smartmom are dying to know what Teen Spirit is thinking about doing next year. But they’re trying to be really casual about it. “Like, hey, what you got planned for next year, buddy?” And then:

“AND HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR IT?”

Understandably, they don’t get very far with that line of questioning. Teen Spirit is a lot more receptive when they act really uninterested and bored.

One time he told them that he’s thinking of living in a shack in Ireland.

Did you say something, Teen Spirit?

Another time he mentioned walking across America.

That’s nice, Teen Spirit. Very nice.

Actually, Smartmom loved that idea. She loved it so much that she actually found out that you can Google maps for walking across America. Plus, it would make a terrific college essay. But she didn’t tell him that.

Last week, he told Smartmom that he might just get a retail job and live with one of his best friends in an apartment somewhere in Brooklyn.

Whatever.

The truth is, Smartmom wants Teen Spirit to do something really exciting for his gap year. But she knows that if she comes on too strong with a list of things to do he’ll just tune her out. He especially hates it when she mistakes what she wants for what he wants.

So she’ll just have to stay mum about a European train trip, Outward Bound, backpacking in the Czech Republic, apprenticing for a documentary filmmaker, hanging out with songwriters in Nashville, trekking in the Himalayas, building houses in New Orleans, teaching English in …

It’s starting to sound like one of those ”100 Things To Do Before You Die” lists. Hey, maybe Smartmom should take a gap year. It sounds like a perfect antidote to turning 50 and a great way to infuse her life with some excitement. Can’t she just defer her marriage and motherhood for a year?

©2008 Community Newspaper Group