Musings on the year

Today, after five or six days of only walking in our neighborhood (and being cooped up happily in our house otherwise), I told D I had to see something else. And so beasts of burden it was. It felt appropriate....this cow giving me the side-eye. I feel a little bloated and bovine after slubbing around for days on end and eating entirely too much dairy. 

It is New Year's Eve or Arbitrary Time Delineation Day Eve as I like to call it. Where most people toast in the falseness of a new year, but more importantly, an all new and improved possibility of themselves, a them it is probably not possible to be at least within the mere span of 12 months and certainly not on day two or even the first 30 days of January. 

As much as I dislike all the rubbish around this day and tomorrow, I find myself reflecting on this past calendar year because it has continued what has been several years of milestone-ish events and nausea-inducing whirlwinds (if I think too much about it). 

My dad's open heart surgery in 2019 followed by mom's second breast cancer thereafter (or maybe hers was right before...who can remember). 

COVID in March 2020, followed that summer by Dad's cancer, chemo, radiation, and more surgery and radiation in 2021. 

N turning 18 in early 2022, the two of us going to the Galapagos two months later and that trip followed by her graduation from high school. 

G starting high school.

Our family trip to Scotland this past summer as a celebration of 25 years of marriage (as of late 2022) and me turning 50 (in 2023). 

And now M has applied to the same high school where G attends, so I'm apprehensive about that and anticipating the strangeness of my baby being in 9th grade. 

Around Christmas 2020, I really thought we were going to lose Dad and so I told myself that anything beyond that moment was gravy. Time with him beyond that instant was something unexpected and so I should pay special attention to it. 

As much as I do not like to use terminology like this, the realization felt holy to me and still does. It centered around my dad at that time, but it has expanded to include most everything I do. (Of course, things like earning money have to be done when and how they have to be done.)

I've always been reflective, even since childhood. I was one of those "mature beyond her years" kids, which I think mostly means you're well on your way to needing therapy and a solid antidepressant regimen. But that reflective moment felt deeper than others. 

As much as 2020 was a complete shitshow in so many ways, every year since then has been an effort in me considering time and what I do with mine. Do I want to be busy? Do I want to sit with my thoughts? Do I want to have a relationship with this person or that person? Who gets my valuable and limited time?

Although her poem is tiled The Summer Day, Mary Oliver's line, "what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" has been on my mind almost always since that Christmas 2020. 

Even in the bleak early winter as I roamed through the woods today, on the new year's eve, I found myself thinking how right Oliver's poetic lines have been for me these past years:

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Graduation letter

Dear N,

Tomorrow is your commencement. I think it is kind of interesting that we call them that because so often people get weighed down by the ending of things when it comes to high school graduation. Parents, especially, feel sad and sentimental seeing their children reach this milestone. But to commence is to begin, and in all the important ways, your life is just now beginning. 

My memory is pretty poor in general, but I remember feeling excited and terrified when I graduated from high school. There were so many decisions before me: What was I going to be? What was I going to do? So many big potential life events on the horizon---Maybe marriage one day? Maybe kids one day? Gainful employment? A house and furniture and adulting?

You are embarking on a time of figuring stuff out, and you will be doing that for the rest of your life. It is a long lifetime road of not knowing what the fuck you're doing, but that is ok because no one else knows what the fuck they're doing either. Your dad and I certainly don't know what we're doing as we navigate having a legal adult in the house who is also our child. Some people hide their not knowing better than others but, trust me, this is the human condition. 

For about the next ten years, you're going to be in a state of confusion and discomfort if you're anything like most people (or maybe just me). As a new 18-year-old, you are really in the wormy stage of adulthood babyhood; you've barely got your eyes open and you haven't figured out what your hands are for. Your twenties are exciting and new and mind-blowing and weird; it's like the later babyhood and toddlerhood of adulthood. You learn to belly-scoot, then crawl, then Frankenstein-monster walk. In your thirties, you'll run. In your forties, you'll run and give the finger to anyone who looks at your cross-eyed because you don't care what they think anymore. I'll update you on the fifties once I get there. 

All commencements come with advice so here is some of mine:

1--Go to therapy sooner rather than later should you ever feel you need it. It can be extremely helpful to have a totally objective person help you deal with things without the baggage that friends and family bring. A strong person knows when they need help and seeks it out. 

2--Don't assume you know the answer; instead ask questions. Your brilliant mom made some big assumptions in college without seeking answers from people who knew more than I did. While I am happy with the life I have, I often wonder if my trajectory would have been different had I not assumed but asked. 

3--Don't worry about people who peak now or in college or at anytime that is different than you. And truly, what does peaking mean anyway? A girl you were in playgroup with as a toddler is the youngest American woman to climb Mount Everest which is amazing, but do you want to climb mountains? Some people do big, huge things in the world, like Alexander the Great, and are remembered in history books. The rest, the other 99.9%, live their lives quietly. Henry David Thoreau said "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," and I think that is probably true. The goal, I suppose, is to avoid a life of desperation but quiet isn't so bad. 

4--Henry David Thoreau also said, "I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors." And that is another piece of my advice to you: Ignore my advice if it seems irrelevant or like bullshit. Do what you want and don't worry too much about what anyone else thinks.  I can't live your life. I'm not you. You have an entirely different experience from me so be truest to yourself and live by your values. Do no harm to yourself or others if you can help it. 

5--DO NOT throw away your retainer. Seriously, despite what Henry David said, this advice should be heeded. Your middle-aged mouth will be glad you listened to your mom. 

Tomorrow you'll wear your cords and your stole and it will feel like the most important thing you've done. And it is. For now. But this, my dear, is truly only the beginning.

Love,

Mom

Why milestones aren't sad (to me)

Despite being a bit of a downer personality, I don't usually feel sad about my kids' milestone events. 

I am not in any way, shape, or form sad that N's field hockey career is OVER as of next week when we have the banquet. Yes, she did it for seven years. Yes, she had fun doing it. No, I will not miss seeing her play field hockey. 

I didn't feel sad that my son got promoted to middle school and we left behind the elementary school where we had been for 12 years. It's a great school; my kids had awesome experiences there. But there are other experiences to be had.

The benefit of having three kids is that by the time the last one does anything, I'm kind of "over it." I've done whatever "it" is so much that I'm thrilled to not have to do "it" anymore. 

The truth is, I don't understand the boohooing people do when their kids reach milestones. These milestones are a GOOD thing, a reason to celebrate, a time to move on to the next thing. It seems strange to me to waste away time in nostalgia, where all the shitty gets glossed over as if it was delightful. 

I am thankful to have spent years at home with my children, but I have yet to slide into nostalgia about it. I can watch a video of their cuteness but also remember the sleepless nights and the poopy diapers and the whining over stupid stuff and the toys everywhere and the speech therapy and occupational therapy and endless doctor visits and surgeries and how much shit I had to pack just to go to Target with them. We had to have SNACKS to drive to the freaking post office to mail a letter. 

To lament the milestones is to get stuck in a haze of "It was wonderful in every way" when it wasn't. 

Last year during quarantines, it pained me to see so many people complain about their kids being home all the time. I have already started to see and hear people do the "My kids are going to college and now I'm sad because they are leaving" thing, and I want to yell, "YOU HAD A YEAR OF TIME WITH THEM THAT YOU COMPLAINED ABOUT. YOU WASTED THAT GIFT." 

Now maybe I don't have a heart (it is possible). 

Maybe I'm not in touch with my feelings. 

I am not sad about N graduating from high school because if I want to hang onto this time it means never letting her move on. It means trapping her in a lifetime of 17-year-old-ness to satisfy my own weird feelings. That's the kind of stuff they do to princesses in all the crappy fairy tales; trap them in amber so they can watch time go by without them. 

Plus, I have every reason to think that my relationship with my kids, which is good now, can get better or at least differently good. My relationship with my parents has grown and changed as we have grown and changed, and that has been lovely. 

And besides all this, time doesn't give a shit that you want to hang onto it. All the belaboring of time moving on is just a waste of the time that you have. 

25 years of togetherness

I can barely get it together to remember our wedding anniversary for which I have paper documents to remind me of the specific date.
We never exchange gifts and mostly don't bother with cards.
Never having to please me with a special gift is one of the things D likes most about me.
When we began dating, he specifically mentioned to his mom, "She doesn't like to shop."
Our relationship has never involved me dragging him out to the mall.

Next month marks 25 years of togetherness for us.
I don't remember the day of our first date, but it was 1995, and I'm pretty sure it was June, and I know it was a Sunday.
I think we got engaged at the end of May 24 years ago.
It may have been today, but I'm not 100 percent certain.

Those little details never seemed important.
What was important was that we took a walk in the park on our first date.
On that first date, he asked me out for the following weekend, a full week in advance.
I used to be the type of person who thrived on making all of my plans WAY more ahead of time than I do now so this impressed me.

On that second date, he barely talked at dinner but then opened up during a nighttime walk.
We both liked the film version of "Orlando."
He didn't like sports.
We went to see a play called "Angry Housewives," which was prescient although neither of us knew it at the time.

D knew me before I was medicated for anxiety, and if he can handle that gauntlet, he deserves the peace that comes with me being far more chill now.

This isn't to say our marriage is perfect.
We've gone to therapy.
I'm not as huggy as he'd like for me to be, and he can't locate a single thing in our house without requiring my involvement.
We both hold our tongues.
I'm sure there is resentment underneath the surface for both of us. Small little grudges we've never quite let go of.
There are things he does that drive me crazy, and I know there are things I do that drive him crazy.

But we generally like each other.
We make each other laugh.
Even during pandemic quarantine.

I know he's got my back and supports me.
He lets me do my own thing.
We both have a live-and-let-live philosophy for each other.

I tell him all the time that I don't know why he has stayed in our relationship so long especially since he is the type of person to believe "There is a BEST whatever out there."
And I know I'm not the best.
If the BEST woman ever knocked on our front door (preferably naked) and offered herself to him, he might hightail it out of here.
(He really doesn't like to socialize which is probably the glue that holds our marriage together most.)

I think we're both proud of the life and family we've built together.

Last night we discussed how 25 years feels like a hella long time, especially because neither of us feels especially old.
(Although our knees and backs loudly disagree with that assertion.)

A decade of freelancing

While I don't do new year resolutions or get jazzed about celebrating what is an arbitrary "time change" event, I do recognize that within our human-imposed calendar we have milestone events that we recognize.
Birthdays, for example.

I do celebrate birthdays (mostly other people's birthdays), and I give a passing nod to anniversaries, too.

This year, 2020, marks a decade of freelancing for me.
I didn't ever intend to be a freelancer.
I didn't go "looking for it."
It was pure accident.
I saw an opportunity and thought, "What have I got to lose?"

In my first year of freelancing, I wrote three articles, and only one was paid.
I made $50 for it, which was fine because I was just so excited to have my name in print.
At the time, I was knee-deep in baby- and toddler-care, so to use my brain in a way that allowed me some quiet alone time and made me feel intellectual was huge.

Now, since the freelancing is still part-time, I write around 70 articles a year.
I've branched into more advertising-type work.
My pay has increased, too.

Opportunities have presented themselves in which I edit others' work.
Opportunities have presented themselves in which I train other writers.

Freelancing has made me a better English teacher.
Not every English teacher gets paid for their writing, and I'd venture to say most don't.
When I think about going back to teaching full-time, I know I'd have to give up my freelancing, and I really don't like that idea.
My freelancing feeds my teaching and vice versa.

One of my favorite things about freelancing is the serendipitous way in which it happened and how that one thing created a cascade of openness to other serendipitous opportunities that have brought me a tremendous amount of pleasure and growth. 

Happy 20 years of marital whatever-this-is

I don't want to jump the gun, but provided D and stay married until Wednesday, we will "officially" celebrate 20 years of marital "bliss."

We unofficially celebrated in May with our 6-day trip to Quebec, Canada, which seems a lifetime ago. Our goal was to stay married until our official anniversary.

I think we've got a pretty good chance of making it until Wednesday.

I remember as a teen looking at my parents' marriage and thinking, "Geezus, it is so boring." To my teen eyes, there was no passion, no romance.

My teen eyes were right.

A long marriage is a whole, whole lot of boring. Of tedious. Of thinking to yourself, "How in the world have we tolerated each other for this long?" It is sprinkled with occasional bouts of "I cannot stand this person at all" and "I am so thankful I have this person in my life."

Every once in a while, if you can somehow find enough energy, there are sparks of the passion that got the two of you together in the first place, but those are hard to find during any kind of sports season when you are driving someone to practice or a game 3-4 times a week.

Most conversations that D and I attempt to have are interrupted by G wanting to say something highly important right-that-moment about poop or a video game.

We are entirely too tired and antisocial to actually want to "go out and do anything" on a weekend. That whole "date-night concept" is not really for people who don't enjoy going out much.

If my kids ever ask me the "secret" to a long marriage, I think I would tell them that to have a long marriage, you have to keep your mouth shut a lot.

You have to realize that the whole "grass is greener" phenomenon is bunkus. Other situations appear better, but the reality is that that other person who seems amazing enjoys sports WAY more than you and would have a game on the television ALL THE TIME and would EXPECT YOU TO EAT AT SPORTS BARS. That other person likes to shop ALL THE TIME and would EXPECT YOU TO GO WITH HER.

A long-term marriage requires that you still consider the person you married your friend, and in spite of all his/her annoying personality quirks, you know that the person you married is going to be there come hell or high water.

By the time you reach 44 and 48 years of age, you want someone who will go with you to your colonoscopy and find the mupirocin when you have an infected hang-nail, not someone who will take you dancing every weekend.

Having and continuing to want a long-term marriage is looking at what you started with and being thankful for and proud of what you've built together---the family, the camaraderie, the wealth when you started out with nothing.

So....here's to Wednesday, to 20 years, to looking at life through middle-aged eyes and finding that marriage may be a little dull but not so bad after all. 

Half my life (and why I won't do a Love Your Spouse challenge)

This summer marks a milestone:  I've been in a relationship with D for half my life--21 years.

I very clearly remember, sometime after we married, a conversation we had about the point at which we would be together half my life.  That seemed like a long time away, longer than what it has actually been to arrive at half my life with him.

This fall we will mark 19 years of marriage.  We keep thinking we'll go on a trip for our 20th in 2017, assuming we can ever firmly decide on a place.  So far we've considered Paris, Bavaria, Hawaii, Montreal and Key West.  But I keep finding places I'd like to go.....so add Acadia National Park in Maine to the list.

Overall, I think we are well-suited to one another.  I hear of other couples who have shouting match arguments, and I don't understand it.  I could have shouting match arguments if I was married to a different person, but yelling just isn't D's thing.  He shuts down, and you can't fight with someone who is no longer standing there in front of you.

My parents never did shouting match arguments either. They had "quiet disagreements," and I think this sums up what D and I have.

With this being said, D and I certainly get on each other's last nerve.  There are times I think to myself, "Why in God's name did I marry him?"  There are times when I imagine taking a frying pan to his head.  But some of that frustration at times coalesces with frustrations with the kids, so I'm often not sure how much is actually him or the kids or the combination of both.  He doesn't write a blog or particularly talk about when he is frustrated with me, but I know he has to get that way at least occasionally.  And he isn't the type to huff and puff and rattle crap around as I do when I'm frustrated.

I've seen a Love Your Spouse challenge on Facebook and haven't been tagged by anyone, which is good, because I wouldn't do it.  For starters, D doesn't like to have his photo plastered on Facebook.

But I also don't want to do it because I think it sends a false message, and isn't that what social media is mostly about anyway?  The majority of people post stuff that they want everyone to think is their life, even if what they post is only 5% of it.

People post a pic of themselves at the gym on the elliptical but not of their kitchen counter with 3 packages of donuts (and yes, I'm referring to my kitchen counter right now).

People post pics of themselves dressed up, coordinated with their kids, but not slumming in their paint clothes on a Saturday afternoon with their hair not washed since Thursday.

People post pics of the dinner that turned out beautifully but not the 8 million dinners that ended up burnt in the oven or that tasted craptastic.

And if I post pics of me and D together all smiley, it doesn't convey the 99% of our marriage that is figuring out who picks up what kid from where.  It doesn't convey me shopping for his underwear at Target.  It doesn't convey morning breath and gross nail-picking habits (mine) and beard hair all over the bathroom (his) and watching each other's bodies grow looser and grayer over 20 years.

It ain't pretty, that's for sure.

What we say on social media is probably .2% of the story.  If someone posts that they are moving with their children, it might mean that they are in the midst of or just come out of a nasty, nasty divorce.  There is a lot to, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story" that we aren't privy to.  We don't want to be privy to it, but we forget it is there at all on social media.

A family kindergarten milestone

Tomorrow M "graduates" from kindergarten.  He has been singing the songs for his performance for weeks.  I anticipate that I will not get all weepy, but this confidence is a sure bet that I'll ugly cry all over myself.

What makes his completion of kindergarten remarkable is that it is the end of an era, and that makes me feel all sappy sentimental.

All three of my kids have been Abbey's Angels....with the same teacher, aide and special classroom granny (who is also our neighbor).

2009

2014

And 2016

(We'll get a photo of M and Ms. R---special classroom granny--tomorrow)

G was actually in another class when he first began kindergarten, but enrollment was off and he only had 16 kids in the classroom.  When they had to move the students to fill out classes, any student whose sibling had a certain teacher got to go to that teacher......and we were Angels again.

When N was in kindergarten, the class created a Reading Garden, which I hold near and dear, and which is a big reason I volunteer as beautification chairperson at the school.  I want to ensure that this flowerbed looks nice and stays looking nice because it was where our journey with the school began.

These ladies are top-notch wonderful, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of women to welcome my children and me into the elementary school.  

I know I will see them often in and around the school, but it is bittersweet knowing this ride is really over.  

Insomnia and the life vest (and teacher sexual assaults and the brain and probably the kitchen sink)

3:00 am--awake with insomnia

I haven't had insomnia all summer, even with the graduate class, but elementary and middle school meet & greets in a 3-hour period AND an editorial miscommunication email with the magazine apparently needed to spiral in my mind in the wee hours.

I woke up to the life vest squeeze.  Eventually, after thinking all of my thoughts, I engaged in deep breathing and got back to sleep.

One of the things I'd never fully understood was the actual process by which anxiety affects a person, that whole "fight-or-flight" thing.  It was part of my grad research project for this summer's class, so in light of my recent episodes of panic/life vest squeezes, I am trying to explain the process to myself as I'm being squeezed.

What happens to me, at least, is that I am feeling a physical "fight-or-flight" without even being aware of what is causing the "fight-or-flight."  Like I'm surprised that I'm having minor panic.  But this makes sense given that panic/anxiety is a process that leaves the rational part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) out of the equation for a long time.  The sympathetic nervous system is working, the hippocampus (memory) is working, the thalamus (sensory processing) is working......the amygdala (emotion/fear-center) is off-the-rails, but the PFC hasn't been sent a memo.

So my body (the squeeze) is out of my control before I can even get my brain working properly to analyze what the heck is going on, to rationally examine anything to determine whether it is a real "threat."  Of course, modern life is a barrage of unreal threats that feel real.  I have yet to encounter a feral boar or saber-tooth tiger.  They might be less exhausting than meet & greets with 700+ people mulling around.

The benefit of my medication is that it helps quicken the time it takes for my PFC to begin working.  Prior to medication, it would take me weeks before I was able to rationally investigate anything going on in my head.  The physical "fight-or-flight" panic would lessen over a week or two.  Now, I might have a day or a couple hours of physical sensation before my PFC goes, "Ok, what is this all about?  Let's apply some CBT practices."

I am forever amazed by the brain.  In addition to being an astrophysicist, I think if I could be anything in the world I'd want to be a neuroscientist.  Basically, I want to explore the unknowns of space and the mind---the two big black holes of stuff we can't wrap our puny little understandings around.

Within the past month, a former colleague of mine from a decade ago was convicted of raping one of his students, a situation that makes me feel all weird inside for a variety of reasons.  I am shocked because I never, ever would have thought this possible of him.  I find myself thinking, "Maybe he is innocent?" because it just seems so.....horrible that someone I actually know and worked with would do such a thing.

This week, I had an online discussion with college friends about claims that a former college professor sexually assaulted a teenager.  Now this guy I could totally see doing such a thing.

Isn't it interesting and troubling that I could totally imagine one man doing that and another one completely not?  It makes me question my own judgment of others.

These two episodes makes me think about the brain and what it tells us.  I tend to believe that most people who commit crimes of any nature are either 1.desperate or 2.mentally ill.  Mostly #2, which can make a person feel #1.  I say this from personal experience with OCD.

(TRIGGER WARNING)
I think I've written about intrusive thoughts---those repugnant, random ideas that pop into someone's head.  If they are in any way sensitive or conscientious, that person will feel mortified by those thoughts and believe they are going crazy.  I suffered from intrusive thoughts when N was a baby---imagining myself stabbing her with a knife as I was cutting apple slices.  I wasn't angry, frustrated, provoked....nothing.  Just slicing an apple for lunch and having this reprehensible image pass through my mind.  I doubted myself.  Did I want to hurt my daughter?  I didn't feel like I wanted to hurt her, but if I was thinking this, then maybe I did?  Can I trust the thoughts in my own brain?

Even though I was medicated when the boys came along, I would sometimes have an intrusive thought of a sexual nature when I changed their diapers.  By that time, I had read enough about OCD to know that 1. these thoughts were my worst possible fears flitting through my brain and 2. just because I had a thought didn't mean I wanted to do it or would act on it.

We all have sometimes reprehensible thoughts, and most of us do not act on them.  Some of us are lucky enough to not even pay them any attention.

So what makes a person move from the thought to the action?  The conviction of my former colleague and the claims about the college professor make me consider.

This line of thinking makes me wonder about intent.  Is intent thinking about something?  What kinds of crimes would any of us be guilty of if intent was any random thought that popped into our heads?  Is the difference between intent that a reprehensible thought scares us to death or a reprehensible thought makes us feel excited?

Whenever I hear about a female teacher assaulting students, I am usually pretty astounded by this, more so than when I read about male teachers.  Yes, some teenage boys may look like adults physically, but eventually they speak, and it becomes quite clear that they are children.  I often question the maturity of the 46-year-old boy with grey hair who lives in the house with me.

It feels like a slippery slope whenever I think of these things.  I certainly don't condone such behaviors in any way.  I ask myself repeatedly when I think of my former colleague, "How in the world could a person do such a thing to anyone, but especially a child?"

But I also know from my own experience not being able to control my own thoughts that I can't be too high-and-mighty when it comes to others.  Maybe I've only been extremely lucky that my thoughts have remained random thoughts and not anything more.....maybe the majority of us are lucky in this regard.  

I'm ready (pre-emptive August thoughts after 11.5 years of stay-at-home mothering)

I willingly stayed home with my children for the first five years of each of their lives, a decision that I do not regret.  Still, after over a decade, I am ready for the next stage.

I'm ready to not frantically squeeze in exercise, volunteering, errands and me-time in a 6-hour window per week from Sep-May.

I'm ready to be able to write during the daylight hours without interruption or bribing my kid with video game time.  (The fact that I have composed and published as much coherent stuff as I've done is miraculous.)

I'm ready to make professional phone calls without the worry that the Xbox timer will run out and the person on the line will hear endless screams of "MOM!  MOM!  MOM!" in the midst of our discussion.

I'm ready for a 5-minute errand at the grocery to actually be a 5-minute errand and not a 45-minute traipsing through the aisles being badgered into "just one" nasty processed piece of junk.

I'm ready to get my butt to the gym without any more coercion than what I need to get my own physical self out the door.

I'm ready to be able to browse Target sections that I like rather than reading a book in every toy aisle.  (Seriously, they need to put benches at every end-cap.)

I'm ready to only get food for myself during the day and not have to cater to the Hobbit meal plan of post-breakfast snack, lunch, and post-lunch snack.

I'm ready to not pack 30 lbs of food and drinks for every jaunt outside the house Monday through Friday (per the Hobbit diet).

I'm ready to be able to finish books in less than 3 weeks because I can read uninterrupted while waiting after my allergy shot.

I'm ready to only take care of my waste removal processes during the day.

I'm ready to finish a number of projects that have been in limbo for 11 years.

I'm ready to have occasional lunch dates with my husband and friends.

I'm ready to take a nap after lunch without falling asleep to the sound of Uncle Grandpa and being awoken by the Hobbit's demands for food.

For many years, I fretted over the time when my children wouldn't be young, thinking I wouldn't be needed.  I am 41 years old and still call on my own parents regularly to ask questions or favors.

I am ready for my children to need me in a different way.  

The mothering stage I'm in

M and I take a music class every Wednesday.  This past week during a moment of transition the conversation amongst the moms turned to the the things I've got on my plate right now--the cottage school teaching, the magazine freelancing, and the graduate school.  One of them said, "Oh my gosh, you're so busy."

It's funny, but there are moments when I don't feel particularly busy.  Right now, I don't have an article I'm working on, and I've planned all my lessons for the rest of the year, so if I have already completed my class work then I'm just sorta sitting around.

Sure, I could clean, but I don't believe in cleaning stuff that isn't downright filthy.

And I have a difficult time reading when the kids are around because I need quiet to concentrate on what I'm reading.  The last thing I experience in this house with the boys is quiet.

I'm waiting on D to redo the speaker wiring in the basement, so I'm unable to hang up any of my wall decor since we painted and had the new flooring installed.

I guess I could bake or cook, but I don't enjoy doing those things.  Those are chores more boring than cleaning the toilets.

In terms of the kids, we are at that stage where I have to be here, in the house, available when and if they need me, but they generally don't need me much.  That is why I am pretty ok with having the teaching job and the freelancing stuff and the graduate class.....it gives me something purposeful and interesting to do in the lags, which are frequent.

It is a weird place to be, a limbo of sorts, and though I am glad to be out of the decade of "mothering itty bitty kids stage" where I have to watch their every move, I am trying to wrap my head around my entry into this new stage of "available as needed," which will last another decade.

Well, really I guess this stage lasts the rest of my life.  To this day, my mom and dad are "available as needed" when I have a question or need them to watch the grandkids or listen to me vent.

Yet another......graduation (a discussion of sentiment and semantics)

I have attended my children's preschool and kindergarten graduations.  This spring I will attend N's 5th grade graduation.  I have always been happy to see them sing or read or enjoy the feeling of having met a milestone--a year or two of work and learning.

But I have to balk at today's "graduation:"  N and her fellow 5th grade peers "graduated" from a drug & alcohol education class that lasted 10 weeks and was taught by local police.

Now this is not a criticism of N's school or teachers.  I love them.  Nor is it a criticism of drug & alcohol education programs.  Those are worthwhile.  Nor it is a criticism of police or local government, who sponsor the program.

It is a criticism of holding a graduation for a 10-week-long once-a-week class to which parents were invited and at which students received certificates and small trophies.

It was absurd.

I went to the "graduation" because parents were invited, and I would feel like a complete cad if I hadn't.  But I went grudgingly.  I didn't take my camera.  I didn't buy N a new outfit.  I didn't change out of my jeans.  I didn't buy her flowers (I did see one child who was given flowers).  I complained to at least 2 other parents about how goofy it was to be at this thing.

It wasn't a milestone, nor was it monumental.  I don't think 10 weeks' worth of anything is worth celebrating, especially not with a "graduation."

If they had called it a "completion ceremony," maybe my hackles wouldn't be up.  Maybe my issue is not with the thing as much as with what we call the thing?   There just can't be, nor should there be, so many dang graduations from things.

Of course, I'm peevish about graduations, in general.  I wore my "Liberal Arts Graduate:  Will Think For Food" t-shirt with jeans when I got my bachelor's degree because I was all grungy and angst-ridden about life in general.  I didn't even go through commencement ceremonies for my master's degree because I didn't care about the pomp and circumstance.  I had worked hard and it didn't matter if anyone knew it.  I KNEW it.  I had a paper diploma to prove it.  I didn't need to hear my name called and pay some ridiculous fee.

Even N said tonight, "That music they played was pretty weird, right?"
Smells like sentimentality to me.

Thinking about death...a lot

I have found myself thinking a lot about death.  In my pre-medication days, this wasn't unusual.  I worried about death almost constantly, but I haven't done this in a long, long time so it bears considering.  Why am I thinking about it now?

Even though I don't care one whit about the "new year," since it is just a random arbitrarily selected day in which the earth continues rotating in its infinite spin around the sun, 2015 will mark a considerable change in my life, a death of sorts.

It will mark the end of my life as a stay-at-home mom of young children.
In August, all three of the kids will be in school full-time.

I have been noticing younger moms with toddlers and babies in tow and thinking back to my own days in their shoes.  And I miss it, even though I don't really miss it.  I don't want to go back; I don't want to do it again, but I have forgotten so much about it already.  I miss seeing my children's faces at that age.  I miss snuggling them.  I miss the feel of their soft skin.

There is nowhere to go but onward.  Time continues.  My children are growing up, and I am aging along with them.  There is much good to be had in this time.  New experiences that can't be done with babies and toddlers.  There will be time for me to reconnect with adult people in my life who have, more or less, been ignored the past eleven years.  D and I may even do some lunch dates, a rare opportunity to chat without someone interrupting our conversation.

But it is an end, a death, a loss that I am, in my own non-procrastinating way, anticipating and attempting to wrap my head and heart around.  

Diez, Tiu, Dieci, Dix, Theka

Dear N,

Your 10th birthday is such a milestone.

For you, it is a season of newness.  Your body and mind are on the cusp of such great change as your hormones kick in and you prepare in another year to enter middle school.  You have grown so much in these ten years, and in another ten you will be, for all intents and purposes, a full-grown adult.

For me, it is a time of reflection, a looking back over a decade of mothering you.  As much as you have changed, so have I.

I am not the mother I was to you when you were an infant and young child.  In some ways, you had the best of me, a "me" your brothers have never and will never see.  More enthusiastic, more able to dedicate individual time, less tired, certainly more organized.

But you also experienced "uptight" me.....so worried that every little thing I did or didn't do would harm you.  I so didn't understand then how much of you was already "you" the instant you were born.  I didn't understand then that just being around, just being available to you when and if you want me, is so much more than being "in your face" and having quality time....whatever that means.

What a "you" you have grown to be.

I know you mostly see me being "nagging" mom or "grumpy" mom or "makes me do my homework" mom.  I don't usually let you know when I am being "studying your long thin fingers" mom or "liking that all you talk about is American Girl dolls because it means you are still a little girl even though I get tired of hearing about American Girls" mom.

I don't usually tell you how proud I am of you that you are one of the girls selected to work with the special needs students at your school because of your compassion and maturity.  I forget to tell you how glad I am to see that you have much more confidence in math than you did a year ago even though it will likely always be your "harder" school subject.   I have to remind myself to tell you how much I like it that you are so comfortable in your skin, wearing funky glasses without the glass in them just because you like how they look even though you don't need them for vision. I don't want to give you a big head or be a braggart, but I am so proud of you qualifying as the only 4th grader for written assessment.

Being your mom is such a huge privilege, and I am thankful every single day that I was blessed with you for my daughter.

Enjoy your 10th birthday events and activities!

Love,
Momma

Suggestions for 2014

I don't really like to think of what I do on New Years as being a resolution since that takes a lot of....resolve.  I'm so completely out of my routine groove that scrounging up an ounce of willpower is almost more than I can manage.  My abdomen is proof.  

Whenever a new year comes around, although I recognize it as being an artificial restarting of time, I am always happy to see it.  However arbitrary, I like the idea of a fresh start.  A space in the continuum of life to take stock, rid myself of baggage, see if I can find ways to be a better person.  

In 2013, things felt different.  G began kindergarten, M started preschool, and I started my slow re-entry into professional educational work.  I'm not sure all of this translated into "better," but it was different.

There were some things I saw fulfilled, namely getting through Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, a task that was two years or so in the making.  Teaching forced me back into classics, which helped make this novel feel do-able.  

Right now, perhaps because of the excess of the holidays (foodstuff and stuff-stuffs) I am less about starting new things as I am about completing things I've wanted to do.  Using up what I have.

So my suggestions to myself for 2014 as as follows:

1. Finish reading the books that are on my bedside table, especially the ones I began in 2013.  And if this doesn't work, MOVE those books to another "holding tank" so that I'm not looking at them every night and feeling like I'm so.far.behind. 

2. Recommit to working out 2 times a week and eating "whole."  I had been doing this fairly well until December when everything went to hell.  The windows, G's tantrums, sickness, an overabundance of sweets and miserable restraint that was stress- and PMS-induced.  I don't own a scale, but I'm feeling more doughy than I'd like.

3. Try, even though it is not in my nature, to stay more calm.  I'm a yeller, a freaker-outer, a blow-my-top gal.  I don't doubt at all that part of G's problem with tantrums is my reaction to G's tantrums.  I am determined, with the assistance of the psychologist and the occupational therapist who will evaluate G on Friday, to try to hold myself together better, to not let G's issues, whatever they are, make me blow a gasket.  I am certain I will fail miserably at this on an almost daily minute-by-minute basis.  But my heart is in the right place, if nothing else.  

(I've got lots of other ideas about what I could or should do, but trying to stay calm in the face of my highly persistent 6-year-old is about all the self-betterment I can stand.  Ultimately, I can't change my basic nature.  I am a bitcher, a whiner, a venter.  I will never be the type of person who oozes love and adoration for anyone, even the people I love and adore.  It just isn't how I roll, and it will never be.) 

4. Save more money.  (This I love to do and even consider it fun.  I gotta have an easy one in here.)

And that is it.

I resolve to consider these suggestions as things I may like to do in 2014. 

The quickening of time (the night before I send my youngest off to preschool)

This isn't what I expected.
I didn't think that the night before I send M off to preschool I would be in bed, weepy tears welling in my eyes, feeling everything except relieved to have some time all to myself.

I didn't expect to feel the harshness of time being sucked out from under my feet, pulling me away from this moment, all of these moments.

I didn't expect to hold all three of my children in my lap tonight and know that I have forgotten the babies they were. Know that I will forget much of the children they are at this moment.

I don't like the pull of my life toward the unknown and old age and my children slipping away from me.

Fleeting time is making me unsteady.

I have done a poor job of savoring, of holding tight to the sweet moments.
I am telling myself this is simply because I am human.
It is impossible to hold it all in the cup of my hand and appreciate it fully.
But I'm so sorry for not trying harder.

This is the natural progression.
This is as it should be.
This hurts tremendously.

Nap and nursing milestones, track and other updates

G is done with naps, hence the reason for my failure to blog with any regularity.  Our afternoons are mostly spent in front of the tv, with me doing piddly house jobs that allow me to check in with him.  His newest love is "Ben 10" on Netflix, which he pretend plays all the time.  

I have to laugh at how much of an anti-tv nazi I was when N was a small child (until I got pregnant with G and borrowed every Disney Princess movie ever made so I could feel pukey on the couch in piece and let N zone out to Aurora, Cindy, and Belle).  At this moment, M is happily eating cereal and watching "Yo Gabba Gabba" on the queue, and I am thrilled to have a moment's peace.  (This morning has been spent cleaning pee-soaked sheets, using a snake/Drano to unsuccessfully degunkify the shower drain, and dealing with my ever-demanding, high-maintenance 5-year-old.)

Lack of blogging can also be explained by my recent work on some freelance pieces.  Any time I had for writing was of the "I'm being paid for this" variety.

In other child milestone news, M is weaned.  I have been more than ready for awhile, but he kept hanging on.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd nurse a child to age 3-and-a-half.  Maybe I will actually get that mammogram my gynecologist has been asking me to have since I was 35?  You know you are DONE breastfeeding when you are eager for a mammary squishing.

I am officially one of "those" moms who has over-scheduled her child.  For the past few years, N has asked to run Cross Country, but with two practices a week plus a meet, I simply couldn't make the commitment.  N and I have piano lessons every Monday evening and Girl Scouts every other Wednesday.  

A few weeks ago, though, she brought home information about a short Track season with only one practice a week and 4 or 5 meets in all.  This was more reasonable for our schedule, so I gave permission with the understanding that if she whines or acts like a turd we won't do it again. She has her first meet this Saturday, so that should be interesting.  I'm proud of her for giving it a go, and I'm actually relieved that she is having an opportunity to do a sport (just so I can give up the guilt that I'm the one holding her back). 

The weather has turned warmer, allowing me and the boys to get outside more often.  They have rediscovered the sandbox, and the sunshine has done wonders for my mood and energy level.  I had been wondering if I was having thyroid issues, but I think it was prolonged winter having its way with me.  

Geez, this is a dull post.

I guess I shall move onto more exciting activities, like disposing of N's stash of Valentine candy that has been sitting on her desk for the past 2 months.  

This nice span of years

I spend a lot of my time bitching.  It's just my thing.

But I have to say that the span of time since N was in 1st grade until now (3rd grade), and hopefully for a long time to come, has been relatively smooth-sailing.

And that is a most welcome thing after years and years of doing everything for young children and enduring endless tantrums over the dumbest of dumb things (per the mind of an adult).

N is that perfect blend of able to do much for herself, able to understand logical decisions, able to understand that she can think whatever she wants but she doesn't have to and probably shouldn't speak it, and yet still willing to play dress up with her brothers and Mamaw or dress up her Barbies on an almost constant basis.

She is well beyond picture books, which I thought would break my heart since we so loved reading them together.  But reading Little House on the Prairie with her has been a special delight for me.  Talking with her about how Laura Ingalls family lived.  Knowing that she really appreciates and enjoys the book when she says, "Do we have to stop?" even though she sometimes acts like she'd rather read anything else.

I like it that at bedtime she asks me to snuggle with her and "do a garden" on her back (a series of special rubs that depict tilling the soil, smoothing the soil, planting the seeds, etc).

And while there are some unpleasantries, like long division when she is tired from having had P.E. at school and the stink that only elementary school kids can produce, it is mostly a nice, quiet peacefulness before the storm of the teenage years begins.  

Absence makes you realize how loud your children really are

D and I had a lovely weekend away from the children and all parenting responsibilities for the first time in almost 9 years.

(Ok, technically, I have had 48+ hours away from my children, but it was only because I was having more children (and in those cases I had major abdominal surgeries as the means of delivering those children) so that totally doesn't count.)

I slept in until 8:00 am.  I worked out.  I was able to relieve myself without an audience.  I was able to read uninterrupted in the middle of the afternoon.  I did not have to fix anyone a snack.  The only butt- and nose-wiping I had to do was my own.

It was glorious!!

D and I did not run out of things to discuss, although the ride home was quiet.  That could have been a state of mutual depression at returning to "real" life, though.

The only downside of this trip is that our children, who are notoriously loud, seem even louder.

Warning:  Photo Dump

15 years of marriage

This week D and I will celebrate 15 years of marriage.  As I was looking through old photos of us from the early days of our relationship and marriage, I felt a little uncomfortable, as if I were peering into the lives of people I don't know.  It is difficult for me to remember the people we were back then.

On a cruise in 1996, when we became engaged. (Island of Dominica)

The people in the photographs were very, very young.  Of course, we weren't (or at least D wasn't---he was nearly 29 when we married).

Our wedding in 1997.

Our honeymoon. (Grand Cayman Island)

We lived in our first house for 4 years, which seemed like an eternity at the time.  I can still remember that it didn't feel like "home" for a long time.  We've been in our current house 11 years, and the time has flown by.  Perhaps this is simply the busyness of having children and years of accumulated sleep loss.  This house felt like home a lot faster than our first one, but we had been married awhile by the time we bought it.

In the early years of our marriage, we traveled a lot....to some really cool places.  Italy, Greece, Iceland, Canada, Assateague in Maryland, Savannah, GA.  I'm really glad we had a number of years (6+) together as a married couple before we added kids into the mix.

Grand Canyon in 1998.

 Burano, Italy in 2001.

Greece in 2001.

 Niagara Falls in 2002.

Toronto in 2002.

We've been though job changes, master's degrees, the death of a parent, a nervous breakdown, surgeries, car and home purchases, 3 children, many illnesses.  I guess when I look at some of those photographs from the early years, I see two people who were untested, who didn't have 15 years of compromise and frustration and gratitude and simply knowing each other.

Kid #1---N in 2004.  Married 6 years.

Kid #2--G in 2008.  Married 10 years

Kid #3---M in 2009.  Married 12 years.

When D and I hit 10 years, it felt sorta like a big deal.  Double-digits.
Now, at 15 years, I feel like we're in a middle ground between big deal and, "Holy Shit!  We are getting close to 20 years, and then I'll be close to being married for half.my.life!"
And that feels weird.
Good, for sure, but also weird.

I'm proud of the life D and I have made together, the ways we've been able to compromise, forgive, forget, ignore.

Those young kids in the photos didn't know half this stuff.

Wisdom is a sweet reward.