Little Birds

Being a mother is no cake walk.  Most of the time, your heart is stuck in your throat and your mind just reels and reels at what you should do, could have done better, pledge to do better in the future.  These little people and the incredible responsibility they bring is almost too much to bear at times.  But we do.  We bear them, carry them, comfort them, encourage them, lecture them, and maybe, sometimes yell at them.  All this in the midst of trying to keep your head together, the bills paid, a roof over their heads, dealing with your boss, keeping food on the table and shoes on their feet.  Those kids are the center of your world, even though, you know that one day they will leave.  That's the goal.  To send them flying.  To give them enough guts and courage to test their wings.  To fly on their own.  And hopefully, to fly to places you never even imagined they would go.  To fly to places you wish you'd had the courage to fly to.

And one day, if you're lucky, they do.

They fly.

And you sit back and observe with a big, fat grin on your face.  And you see that they are more than what you hoped for.  That they are different, apart, from yourself.  And while they grow up and are still full of doubt and questions about life and the future, you know.  You know that somewhere along the way, you did something right.  You know that they will be okay.  You know that you, in some way, had a part in this amazing, complicated, talented, compassionate human being. 

These are two of my three kids.  My girls. The one in the back, Stevey, is working her way through a design internship this summer in LA.  She's only 19 and even though she was my most fearful child, would walk up 10 flights of stairs instead of riding the elevator, she moves forward in spite of those fears.  She's accomplished so much in the one short year since she left for college. 

The one in the front is Sara.  She detests exercise. She just graduated high school and is on her way to college in a couple of months.  As you can see, she's more laid back, she takes a different approach to life.  She's smart as a whip but not in a hurry.  I have no doubt that she will get to where she wants but she'll take a different route than her sister.  Maybe more detours, maybe not.  Night and day, these girls.  And I love that about them.  I love that they contrast and compliment each other.  I love that where one is strong, the other is weak, and vice versa.  And I love that they lean on each other and have learned to accept their differences.  

They are fiercely independent and strong.  So much more so than I was at their ages.  So yeah, I'm kind of proud.  And now I'm sitting here with a big, happy grin on my face while I sit and watch them fly. 


 

Monday

 
On days like these, every noise feels like an assault.  Monday morning and the garbage truck bangs, snorts and crashes down the street like a prehistoric machine.  I search for a little silence.  It isn't happening.  My husband wakes up early for a change and hovers around my chair, asking questions I already answered last night.  The tiny, shrilling ring of the fax machine is constantly in the background, like a mosquito, until I reach over and yank the cord out of the back.  Please be quiet.

I've barely been awake for thirty minutes before my cell phone starts buzzing and humming.  Questions already?  My boss must know everything under the sun, ASAP and FYI and ETA, btw.  Nothing can wait and why should it?  Not when the answers can be had, must be had, right now.  Text me. Email me.  Call me.  I MUST KNOW!

The more I search for silence on days like these, the more the noise finds me.  Get over yourself, it says, and deal with me.  Deal with us.  And answer these questions while you're at it. 

What time is my job?
Where are my keys?
Where is his lunchbox?
Is this the last week of school?
Are the dishes in the dishwasher clean?
Is the coffee fresh?
Did Robert go to work today?
Do you have breakfast bars?
Are you okay?
What's wrong?
Are you mad at me?
What time is dinner?
What's for dinner?
Did you take my dress to have it altered?
Where's that invoice?
Who are you talking to?
Seen my belt?
Do you have any ideas on how to increase business?

And the garbage truck, brakes squealing, is barreling down the road for what seems like the 100th time in an hour, picking up empty pizza boxes, bags of lawn trimmings, and all the other debris from people trying to cram all the fun and work they can into two days.  Before Monday.  Before the world comes crashing in again with all of its demands and noise and days like these. 

Riding Away My Mid-Life Blues

"In what seems like a cruel trick of timing, women often find themselves letting go of their daughters around the same time they must let go of their identities as younger women."

~Sue Monk Kidd
Traveling with Pomegranates

So that's where I've been this last year.  I know, 47 isn't so old, but I prepare for things in advance.   And 47 is a halfway mark.  At least I hope it is.  I've been raising children for 25 years.  A gazillion packed lunches, scraped knees and science projects.  Most of that time I've been a single mother and the pace and work has been relentless.  It's no wonder when things came to a screeching halt I lost my mojo.  I "took to the couch" for most of the winter, and into the early spring.  No crying, really.  No wailing.  Comfortably numb sums it up perfectly.  A re-defining must be taking place, I think. 


But I couldn't wallow on my comfy couch forever.  I had to move.  Force myself to sit up and put one leg over the side and then the other leg.  I needed to plant my feet firmly on the floor and pull myself up.  And then what?  Every possibility I could come up with was met with a half-ass shrug and a "meh".  I didn't feel like stringing three words together.  Or reading a book.  Mostly, I watched mindless, bad reality shows of the "Real Housewives of..." variety.  Really bad.  But somehow, those plastic, loud-mouthed, fake-tanned drama queens made me feel a little better.  They have everything money can buy and still so unhappy.  And they don't even know it, for the most part.  After awhile, I googled "low energy" and decided I must be in need of B complex.  One day my daughter came home from school and found me in my usual spot on the couch, an open bottle of B Complex lying on the floor surrounded by Lindt chocolate truffle wrappers.  She looked worried, asked if I was okay.  Again with the half-ass shrug and "meh".

I had to do something.  I had to move.  I needed to ease myself back into the land of the living.  So I rolled my bike out of the garage, filled my water bottle, strapped my iphone to the handle bars, turned on my tunes and plugged in my earbuds.

Slowly, a little more daily, I began to shake away the numbness.  There is just something about riding my bike that makes me so happy and strong.  I love the crunch of big, fat Magnolia leaves under my tires.  And when it rains, there's nothing like riding through puddles and feeling the water from the back tire spray onto my back.  The world is teeming with life.  People watering their front lawns smile and wave.  Squirrels dart in and out of the street.  Babies being pushed around in strollers give me the biggest grins as I ride by, like I'm a miracle on wheels.   My heart starts pumping and my muscles sing.  I feel the warmth of the sun and my music is always in the background.  Each day I look forward to my bike ride like a new adventure.

What I'm learning as I ease into this next phase of my life is really simple.  Although a trip to Italy, Eat, Pray, Love style, would be nice to shake off my mid-life blues,  or a shiny new convertible or a new career, I really just need to move.  To be present.  To be grateful.  To challenge myself.


To take one day at a time as the gift that it is and make it my adventure.  Even if that adventure is nothing more than a bike ride around my neighborhood.  It's all in the perspective.  And age?  It really is just a number. 

Young Love Stinks

I was asleep on the couch when my daughter, Sara, burst in the front door and said, "Mama?"  Her voice was broken.  She only calls me Mama when something is wrong.  When she feels small and afraid.  She quickly walked to the couch and I enfolded her in my arms because she had already started crying.  She cried on my shoulder for 10 minutes.  She sobbed.   Gut-wrenching, heart-breaking sobs that shook her body and mine.   At first, I kept whispering, "What is it?  What's wrong, baby?" but after a few minutes, I knew.  I knew the only thing that could produce that kind of crying comes from a broken heart.  And I started to cry, too because oh, man, do I remember how that feels.  I remember the physical pain that resulted the first time a boy broke my heart into. 

They never stop being your babies.  Really.  You never stop hurting for them.  Or wanting to hurt others on their behalf.  As I write this, his car is parked on the street in front of our house.  She left with a friend after she stopped crying and he stayed with his friend.  The blinds are open and I'm watching for him.  Waiting for him to slink by and pick it up.  I imagine throwing open the front door and staring him down, Clint Eastwood style, my right hand poised above the six-shooter that rests on my hip.  I walk slowly to the car and remind him of the time I told him that if he ever hurt my daughter, I would look for him.  And I would kill him (yes, I love that movie).  Time to pay up, little man.  You little, little, man.

It still amazes me that my gut turns somersaults, that my brain can think of nothing else, that I still feel the tug of the cord when my children are hurting.  Sometimes, I become immobilized with fear when I imagine the years ahead for my three kids and the pain that will surely come their way.  I'd take it all on for them if I could.  If only. 

But I can't.  I can't.  I knew this boy would be the one to break her heart.  I'd hoped he wouldn't.  But I could tell by the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned his name.  And she mentioned it often, she looked for ways to mention his name.  The way her whole countenance changed when he walked in the front door.  The way she's been softer, kinder, happier since she started dating him.  Suddenly, the whole world looks rosier when you're in love.  I remember.  And everything looks darker, more sinister, when it's taken away.

I want to tell her that it'll get easier with time.  That he doesn't deserve her.  That he must not be the right one.  But yet, something stops me.  It isn't time yet.  I don't want to diminish her pain with trite little pieces of advice that only make the hurt worse right now.  So I'll wait.  I'll hug her.  And love her.

And I'll keep looking through the blinds.

Preparing for the Empty Nest

It's time for me to write.  The last year has flown by and it's been a strange, new place for me.  So I've hunkered down.  Laid low.  After my oldest daughter left for college, it was time for me to focus on my youngest daughter.  It's her senior year.  I could go on and on about how different she and her sister are but long story short, there is no focusing on Sara.  She's a closed book for the most part.  She has been since about 9th grade.  "I've got this, Mom" is her favorite thing to say to me.  And she usually does.  Eventually. 

My grandson, who's been with me nearly everyday since birth, started Pre-K this year so I have been left to my own devices.  I've been waiting to have some time alone for a long time.  Twenty-five years to be exact.  And it floored me.  Or maybe, couched me is a more accurate term since that's where I've spent the majority of my time.  Depressed?  Not exactly.  Mid-life crisis?  Maybe.  Grieving the loss of my older daughter  and preparing for the loss of my youngest?  Probably.  Bored?  Most definitely.  And that last one, that's the one that gets me.  I'm embarrassed to say it.  Most of my friends are close to my age and still have young children at home and not a moment for themselves and I'm bored?  How silly.  But there it is.  It's been a sort of numb, limbo, transitional, odd land that I've been inhabiting lately.  I'm coming back though.  Slowly but surely. 

Sara graduates in three weeks.  She leaves for college in August.  I've got seven more lunches to prepare and then that phase of my life is over.  I've been the Queen of Lunches, you can ask my kids.  I may have failed in a lot of areas of parenting, but not lunches.  Hell no.  I rule. 

Stevey completes her first year of college in May and then she's off to Los Angeles for two months for an internship.  I'm so proud of her.  It's been a difficult adjustment for her but she's handled every bump so well.  So maturely.  And our relationship has changed.  She doesn't seem to dislike me as much as she did when she lived at home.  Imagine that. 

I have much to say about teenagers, daughters, mid-life crisis and how to pull yourself out of a deep, dark well and what comes after but for now, I'm alive, I'm moving.  I'm off the couch. 

And so glad summer is almost here.

How We Roll

We roll up to the bowling alley, a little late as usual. He gets out of the car ahead of me, his Captain America sweatshirt hood pulled up over his head, his hands deep in his jacket pocketsd, and heads to the side door. I sigh and follow. As soon as he opens the door, we are greeted by a blast of warm air and the sounds of 14 pound bowling balls thumping on the hard wood lanes. We know the drill. We've been here before. He gets the rental shoes, I pick out the balls. We search for our two team mates, easy to find because they are the only black couple on our league, Andre and Pam. She's quiet, intelligent, loves to read and cooks like nobody's business. He's loud, a full-body hugger, gregarious and calls everyone "Big Time." I like that.

Let the games begin. Our team is in last place. We're lousy bowlers. It drives Robert crazy and most rides home after Thursday night bowling are long and silent, except for the sound of his fuming from the passenger seat. My husband promised me three weeks ago to be better. He's stopped trying so hard to be the best bowler ever. And I can see that, I can. He smiles at the better bowlers. He even high-fives them when they get a strike. He puts his arm around me while we watch the other bowlers, kisses my cheek.

This might be okay, I think. Because we're not usually that couple. We stay home and watch movies a lot. We hone in on some new TV show and watch it fanatically until we get sick of it and move on to the next one. We eat take-out chinese in bed, me with my red wine, him, usually sucking down a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. Every now and then he gets crazy and has a drink, Southern Comfort and Diet Coke. Because everything goes better with Coke. Anyone knows that.

So, maybe, just maybe, his sour attitude he had at the beginning of our bowling league adventure was just him learning how to adjust to this new couple and not so much about his competitive angst. This new couple who is beginning to step out of their comfort zone, predictable routines, and try new things. But bowling, right? I know what you're thinking. How mundane. How predictable. How middle-American. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

First the bowling league, and last week, a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico. Not so boring. Robert even got a little crazier, drank a few Margarita's and smuggled a coconut from Passion Island all the way back to our little house in Louisiana.

It sits on our mantle.

He named it Wilson.

Wilson reminds me that there's a whole, wide world out there and we're going to explore it together...me, Robert and Wilson.

Right after I finish this glass of wine and the leftover shrimp lo-mein and watch a few more episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

Because that's pretty cool, too.

Winter Bliss

I'm getting a head start on my list for the new year. I turn 47 on Saturday and my husband decided a few months back to take me on a cruise for my birthday! So, on the day I turn 47, we'll be sitting on a dream-like beach in Cozumel, Mexico, drinking something with an umbrella. I hope this is the first of many traveling adventures I'll have with him. I'm leaving the states for the first time, people!

We both really need this. Really. And I'm so grateful to have a husband who cares enough about to me to plan this, just for me. I wonder what it will be like to be separated from my phone? The texts, emails and phone calls? I wonder what it will be like to sit on the deck of a ship, my husband's hand in mine, with just a warm breeze, the smell of the salt in the air, and miles and miles of blue on blue all around us? I wonder what it will be like to be quiet, inside. And I wonder what it will be like to have nothing but the two of us to consider for four days?

I imagine it will be wonderful, beautiful, and the most fun we've had in a long, long time.

What's your favorite vacation? Or your dream vacation?