I'm about to turn 37 later this month. Oh my God, that sounds so old. It's not an age I ever imagined myself actually being. Yet here I am -- closer to 40 than I am 30, almost through my childbearing years, inching ever so much terrifying closer to the word "mature." I have never had much of a problem with aging... but maybe that's because I wasn't yet aged. I'm starting to take issue with the whole process.
The worst part of all of it is that I am finding myself smack dab in the middle of two generations of maddening, obstinate, unruly people: my kids and my parents.
My kids are... my kids. You know what I am talking about. They are growing up, messily, loudly, and not without a whole lot of laundry. My parents, though, are a whole different steam train that I will confess I never saw coming when I was younger.
My family has had its share of messes and lovely dysfunction. In my early 20s, my parents fell -- hard -- off their pedestals, and the curtains came down and revealed that my "normal, average" childhood was more facade than reality. I dealt with that with some therapy and a lot of hours logging time with the Indigo Girls.
But seeing my parents as senior citizens now -- my mom is 65, my dad 64 -- changes everything. In the past year and a half, my father has collapsed four times. He still works seven days a week and has nary a hiccup in his work performance, but he drives himself into the ground otherwise, and nothing I say or do can stop him. My mom, with her own varied set of health issues, tries to prop him up. They are stubborn, and reckless, and they drive me absolutely batshit crazy. When I raise issues or ask them to take care of health issues, they tell me to step off. Then I get the hysterical midnight or 6 AM phone calls and I have to race to the ER to meet an ambulance. It's wearing on me.
I don't know what the future holds for either of them, but I am filled with dread. I want to shake them and tell them how much I love them and don't want to lose them, but it's not that easy, is it? It never is. Because we have electricity between us, charge in our air that spans the past almost 37 years -- expectations and disappointments and criticisms and sadness -- and I don't know what to say anymore. I force myself to face the fact they they will decline, whether it will be sudden or slow, and I will lose them. How do I want to spend this remaining time together? When will it be time for them to downsize? How will it all go down? And I have no idea. It makes me sad.
Part of me wishes I didn't live two miles away from them so I didn't have to live out every second of this process. Part of me knows I couldn't have it any other way.
With my children, I feel that I gain something of them every single day. With my parents, I feel a daily loss instead. Here in the middle, I just know my mid-section is softer, my knees weaker, my boobs saggier.
... my heart heavier.
Nine
Friday, July 1, 2011
A week or so ago, my firstborn child turned nine years old.
At my college reunion, there were many, many babies, many, many toddlers, and more than a few tummies swollen with the promise of those to come. But nine year olds were far fewer in attendance. I walked past the former lacrosse players toting baby strollers and wondered how I had managed to reach this place where I had no stroller at all -- just three sure-footed, mostly (sigh) potty-trained little boys who are gaining on me in height.
Nine years ago, I was struggling. I was sleeping in a La-Z-Boy with a colicky baby who refused to sleep by himself no matter what Harvey Karp-Dr. Sears-Marc Weissbluth method I tried. I was nursing around the clock and showing off my new party trick: a milk supply that turned my breasts into Rocket Boobs, capable of hitting distant targets like the opposite wall of a restaurant or passersby.
Nine years ago, I looked at this beautiful baby boy with expressive eyebrows and huge blue eyes, and I worried. I worried about the responsibility of raising a little person whom, someday, somebody would love. I worried about being a good enough mother, about doing right by this little being who was obviously so cranky to have been born. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I cried myself -- not to sleep, because I wasn't sleeping. But I cried along with this little baby that I loved so completely.
Nine years later, I have four feet, nine inches of boy by my side. He still has sandy, light brown hair, still has the same huge, light eyes and the same laughing eyebrows. But all traces of pudgy baby thighs are long gone, replaced by knobby knees and impossibly long shins. He comes up from behind and takes my hand when we walk out of restaurants. He squeezes my hand hard when he has to get a vaccination. He no longer demands to sleep in my armpit as he did as a baby, but he still thrills at the every once in a while opportunity to sleep in our bed.
Nine years later, he's brave beyond my belief, confident beyond my expectations, and surprisingly reasonable given his toddler years. He is still my most challenging child emotionally, but he surprises me with growing maturity every day. He's competitive but not without generosity. He loves his friends.
It has been a long, long journey, mothering this little boy. He made me a mother, and then he taught me what that meant. It was nothing like what I expected. At. All. But instead, it has been an adventure -- sometimes complex, sometimes beautiful, sometimes devastating. I have not always been certain I was cut out for this, that I was made of the stuff he needed. But nine years later, I think I can say that I am.
Nine years later, he loves baseball so passionately that he happily goes to baseball camp for five hours a day in the relentless 90-degree heat. He's excited to receive the latest Rick Riordan tome in the mail for his birthday. He makes homemade trading cards for the Greek gods. He's waiting breathlessly for the final installment of Harry Potter on film. He sleeps in a little gabled room with a window looking out into the trees, his treasures tucked into his bedside table, his shelves littered with trophies and game balls and Lego figures. He talks smack to my classmates from college when challenging them in chess. Then he beats them (sometimes).
I am insanely proud of, a little apprehensive about, and always challenged by this boy. The next nine years are going to be crazy. I can't wait.
At my college reunion, there were many, many babies, many, many toddlers, and more than a few tummies swollen with the promise of those to come. But nine year olds were far fewer in attendance. I walked past the former lacrosse players toting baby strollers and wondered how I had managed to reach this place where I had no stroller at all -- just three sure-footed, mostly (sigh) potty-trained little boys who are gaining on me in height.
Nine years ago, I was struggling. I was sleeping in a La-Z-Boy with a colicky baby who refused to sleep by himself no matter what Harvey Karp-Dr. Sears-Marc Weissbluth method I tried. I was nursing around the clock and showing off my new party trick: a milk supply that turned my breasts into Rocket Boobs, capable of hitting distant targets like the opposite wall of a restaurant or passersby.
Nine years ago, I looked at this beautiful baby boy with expressive eyebrows and huge blue eyes, and I worried. I worried about the responsibility of raising a little person whom, someday, somebody would love. I worried about being a good enough mother, about doing right by this little being who was obviously so cranky to have been born. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I cried myself -- not to sleep, because I wasn't sleeping. But I cried along with this little baby that I loved so completely.
Nine years later, I have four feet, nine inches of boy by my side. He still has sandy, light brown hair, still has the same huge, light eyes and the same laughing eyebrows. But all traces of pudgy baby thighs are long gone, replaced by knobby knees and impossibly long shins. He comes up from behind and takes my hand when we walk out of restaurants. He squeezes my hand hard when he has to get a vaccination. He no longer demands to sleep in my armpit as he did as a baby, but he still thrills at the every once in a while opportunity to sleep in our bed.
Nine years later, he's brave beyond my belief, confident beyond my expectations, and surprisingly reasonable given his toddler years. He is still my most challenging child emotionally, but he surprises me with growing maturity every day. He's competitive but not without generosity. He loves his friends.
It has been a long, long journey, mothering this little boy. He made me a mother, and then he taught me what that meant. It was nothing like what I expected. At. All. But instead, it has been an adventure -- sometimes complex, sometimes beautiful, sometimes devastating. I have not always been certain I was cut out for this, that I was made of the stuff he needed. But nine years later, I think I can say that I am.
Nine years later, he loves baseball so passionately that he happily goes to baseball camp for five hours a day in the relentless 90-degree heat. He's excited to receive the latest Rick Riordan tome in the mail for his birthday. He makes homemade trading cards for the Greek gods. He's waiting breathlessly for the final installment of Harry Potter on film. He sleeps in a little gabled room with a window looking out into the trees, his treasures tucked into his bedside table, his shelves littered with trophies and game balls and Lego figures. He talks smack to my classmates from college when challenging them in chess. Then he beats them (sometimes).
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