Let him sleep

Posted on by New At This

That boy, asleep on the couch, is my son. He just finished a grueling ten weeks at Basic Training, the festivities of Family Day, the pomp and ceremony of Graduation. He was tired, with a level of exhaustion that he had never experienced before in his young life. For the first time in two and a half months, he could be at rest without worrying that someone was watching for him to screw up, he could take a deep breath, he could relax. And he could sleep.

In the two and a half months he was gone, we got a total of seven minutes of conversation. I had spent 36 hours in a (very small) car to be there. I stood in line to get a seat in the bleachers, waited for hours in the sun, to bear witness to the accomplishment he had achieved. When I was finally able to find him, mixed in amongst the 1,400 other camouflaged soldiers, the clock began ticking. He was to report back to the barracks at 19:30. We had a total of ten hours of free time ahead of us. He had a checklist of things he wanted to do, and most of it revolved around eating and spending money. Day two began in much the same way, waiting in line, vying for the best seat, trying to pinpoint him in a block of soldiers with identical uniforms and haircuts. And another countdown until he had to report back, once again, to a drill sergeant. We had fun; we shopped, bowled, played pool and Galaga and board games, ate pizza and Chinese takeout and so much junk food. But by 17:00 on that second day, he was tired, and all he wanted to do was nap. And so, still in his dress blues, he stretched out on the couch in a crowded hotel room and slept.

I was so very aware of the minutes ticking away, before I would have to drop him off again, knowing that we would be separated by thousands of miles and months of training before I would see him again. I was reminded of all the times, when the span of his life was still measured in hours and days, and he was lying in a bassinet sound asleep. The wonder surrounding this new child was so profound that more than anything, I wanted to wake him up, so that I could begin to learn everything there was to know about who he was going to be someday. But the best advice I ever received when I became a mother was “do not try to make a sleeping child happier” and so, I let him sleep.

I am learning that the relationship a mother has with her grown children is very different than the one we had when they were growing up. I am more than a friend, but less than a parent and we are still finagling with where the boundaries are supposed to be in this new world. I am not afraid that I have failed to do a good job as a parent. I did the best I could with what I had. I always knew that raising my children to be self-sufficient was the goal we were working toward. No, my biggest fear is that I have done my job too well. What if, while teaching them to stand on their own two feet, I also taught them not to include me in their lives?

These are the adjustments I was not prepared for when my children became adults. When something good happens to my kids, I want them to think “I have to tell my mom.” When something not good happens, I want them to think “I need to call my mom.” I want them to introduce me to their friends and include me in their celebrations and seek me out for comfort and support when things are hard. I want to be invited into their lives. But I don’t know where the line is. I want to let them be independent, let them choose their own adventures, without being clingy or overbearing. It is so very hard to be standing on the outside of the door, knocking where I used to enter freely, waiting for the door to open, hoping to be welcomed.

I know what I hope for in the relationships I will have with my grown children. I don’t yet know what they want. I am afraid to ask them that question because I am also afraid that I won’t like the answer. Everyday, I am learning to accept that there will be chapters in their stories that I may never get to read. I don’t worry less about where they are and what they are doing, now that they are adults. But I am learning to worry quietly, to keep the anxieties to myself, to make peace with ambiguity about their well being.

In that moment, I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to tell him how proud I was, how much I have missed him. I wanted to hear all the stories of the adventures he had been on, the friends he had made, the goals he had accomplished. I wanted to fill, with words, the void his absence had left in my home. I wanted to feel like I was still a part of his life, now that he is living a life without me in it every day. I wanted to lay the foundation for a new relationship that spans time and distance to keep us close. I wanted to reassure myself. But you can’t make a sleeping child any happier than they already are, and I want him to be happy. So, I let him sleep.

The other side of the finish line.

Posted on by New At This

photo of woman running on fishing line

Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU on Pexels.com

I have never run a race. I am not a runner. If you see me running, you should run too because something is definitely wrong. But I know a couple runners. I don’t understand them, but I know them. And (I think) I understand what drives them to get to the finish line, because I am a mother.

For decades I heard comparisons between getting your children safely to “Grown Up” as getting to the finish line. I used that comparison myself. It seemed appropriate, at the time. When passing classes during senior year seemed like too much effort, I told my children “You can’t quit now, the finish line is right there.” When a friend, with two boys in their final years of high school, decided to have another child I told her “you were almost at the finish line and you turned around and started over.” Parenting felt like this race to the end, my child being my running partner, and the goal was to cross that finish line, clearly marked by a graduation and an eighteenth birthday party.

When my oldest child crossed that line, it was an accomplishment. We were running partners, but our relationship was not great. We had struggled; we fought, sometimes tooth and nail. There were threats to give up, and bribes to keep going. But finally, we made it. We did it. It was a long, arduous race, yet we ran it all the way to the end, by golly. But I was still in the middle of that race with my other children, so I kept running.

With my middle child, it was an easy victory. My middle child is much more laid-back than my oldest, this was ground we had covered before so we didn’t have as many of the pitfalls of that first race over uncharted territory. We knew the path to take, and we ran alongside each other at a more relaxed pace. That race was a challenge but not a trial. And I was still in it, with one more child, one more race to finish.

And the day my youngest and I crossed that finish line for the last time, it was not what I expected. I expected pride, which I got in spades. My children have all grown into amazing humans. I expected relief, accomplishment, and joy. And that was there too. This phase of their lives was successfully checked off and they could move on to bigger, better things. But I did not expect the sense of loss and confusion that overshadowed this momentous moment for me.

There are things that I am glad to be done with. I will never again have to walk into Walmart, school supply list in hand, cursing because the specific brand of scissors on the list is so damn expensive. I won’t have to lie awake worried that my children will be left to their own devices on a snow day while I am still required to go to work. Parent-Teacher Conferences, report cards, lunch money are all concerns I am relieved to set aside. I wonder if runners feel this sense of relief when they reach the end of the race and can finally stop running. Do they also feel a sense of loss, knowing they will never run this race again?

On that side of the finish line, I worried if my children would make friends, get bullied, find a date to the prom, get picked last for kickball in gym class, make good choices, and wash their hands. On this side, the worries feel sharper and harder, the consequences harsher. Will they find a good job, an employer who values and appreciates them; will they meet a partner to share their life with? Will they have a warm bed and a hot meal everyday; will they (still) make good choices, and wash their hands? And what do I want my life to look like now?

For twenty five years, more than half my life, my focus had been raising my children. I dedicated my life to being a mother with more intensity than an Olympic runner training to beat a world record, because I was running that race 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a quarter of a century. When people told me “follow your passion” I would respond by saying “I am passionate about taking care of my family.”  The day I crossed that finish line for the last time, there was no glorious sense of victory. Between one moment and the next, the purpose that kept me steady, like the bannister on steep stairs, slid out of my grasp and I was left grasping a heart full of secret grief, even though I expected triumph, to bask in the congratulations from family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

I was so focused on getting to the finish line that I never thought to look across it, to the other side, to see what lies beyond the ribbon stretched across the path. I never suspected that the other side of the finish line was not a destination that we would all enjoy together, but a complete, almost instant, transformation from running partner, to spectator. I didn’t expect it to hurt.

Just in case

Posted on by New At This

I was raised Catholic.  I don’t mean “We went to the Catholic church on Sunday.”  I grew up on the campus of a Catholic boarding school, where my parents worked.  We got the Full Catholic Experience.  We went to church on Sunday, and catechism on Wednesday:   Confessions and Rosaries and Stations of the Cross.  Every church service was an aerobic work out – sit, stand, kneel, repeat.  There were candles and incense and hymnals and holy water.  The Catholic cathedral is a stone and glass monument to God.  None of that modern day, non-denominational Christian “is it a Church, is it a conference center” kind of ambivalence exists in a catholic palace of worship.  The purpose of the church is obvious; stained glass windows, hard wooden pews, a solemn statue of the Virgin Mary staring at you, and a twelve foot tall crucifix with Jesus hanging from the cross to remind you that you are destined for Hell if you don’t change your ways.  If participating in rituals can get you into Heaven, the Catholics will be at the front of the line.  The Catholics are dead certain that they know how to get to Heaven.  Go to Church, confess your sins, feel guilty about everything and BOOM – eternal paradise. 

When I started looking around at the various (Christian based) religions, I realized that they all have the same answer to the one question I needed them to answer – what happens to the soul when you die?  No matter what creed they subscribe to, the answer remains unchanged.  You go to Heaven or you go to Hell – forever.  And the more I thought about this, the more questions I had.

Wherever you go, you will be there for ETERNITY.  When compared to forever, the span of a human life is the briefest of moments.  If a person lives to 100 years old before they die, whether they were a good person or a sinner (according to the specific rules of each denomination), they will spend eternity in either Heaven or Hell. Die at 75 – eternal paradise or eternal suffering. Died at 23, or 12, or 2 days old?  Eternity.  That is the equivalent of having your entire life decided for you based on the type of baby you are in the first hours, days, weeks of your life.  You were a good baby, didn’t cry much, slept through the night – Congratulations!  You get a life of peace and joy and love.  Colicky baby, screamed your head off, never slept more than two consecutive hours – sorry, it’s a life of toiling and suffering for you.  (I realize that analogy is over simplified, but I think you get my point.) 

What of the contradiction between this concept of Eternity and the way this world works?   Everywhere around us, we see the natural foundation this world is built on – the constancy of the seasons every year: Spring into summer, into autumn, into winter.  Nature is a steady phasing of birth into growth into hibernation, followed by rebirth.  You can follow this cycle across decades and sometimes centuries in the growth of a tree.  Sprouted from a seedling, new leaves burst forth, growing taller and stronger, shedding those leaves to hibernate, to begin again next year with new leaves and new growth.  When you cut down a tree you can track the path of its life across the growth rings at its core.  You can tell the wet years from the dry, the places it was scarred and healed, the entirety of its existence laid bare in the cross section of its trunk.  Why did God give us a planet that has shifted and changed over eons, while the human soul gets a couple of decades, then done?  It always seemed so wasteful to me – this never ending creation of brand new souls while all the previously made, barely broken in souls are piling up in eternity.

And then there is science.  The first law of thermodynamics has measured the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable, and consistent across space and time.  Scientists agree.  Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another.   Back in 2005, commentator Aaron Freeman suggested having a physicist speak at your funeral, and he very eloquently explained how the science of the Universe interacts with the human condition.  You can read his words here.  Based on the science, I have to believe that the human soul is pure energy.

One day I came across the concept of reincarnation, and this idea resonated with me. This idea that your soul is born and reborn, over and over until you learn all of the lessons, only then do you get your admission pass to Eternity.  For me, this explains a lot of things.  Déjà vu – that is your soul saying “I think I’ve done this before.”  Meeting someone and instantly disliking them – that is your soul saying “That soul was a douche in the last go around.”  Meeting someone new and instantly feeling like you have been friends forever – maybe you have.  It also explains why bad things happen to good people, or good things happen to bad people.  What if God created this entire universe so that the human soul could figure a few things out?  This makes sense to me.  Every soul is working through an individual lesson plan.  Maybe that good person was working on learning resilience this go around, so the Universe set them smack dab in the middle of a cosmic level American Ninja style obstacle course.  Maybe that bad person was working on learning about grace so the Universe kept giving them another chance, and another, and another.  Maybe people like Ghandi and Mother Theresa were further along the learning curve than me, and I can hope that I will someday be capable of that level of peace and compassion.  Maybe there are no good people and bad people, just a Universal classroom offering tailored instruction to every soul on the planet, to prepare us for eternity.

My father died in 2006.  My mother died in 2009.  It brings me peace to believe that their energy still exists in this world.  Maybe right now, that energy is part of a hurricane wreaking havoc on a tropical island.  Maybe a piece of them is falling as rain on a drought stricken crop, blessing a farmer and saving his family from financial ruin.  Maybe their soul rides on the warm breeze that blows across my neck on a cold day.  Perhaps the pieces of their souls have already been gathered back together and stitched into a new lifetime.  Even now they could be learning to take their first steps or tie their shoes or ride a bike.  Maybe at this moment, they are taking their very first breath in a brand new adventure.  I don’t know where their souls are now, but I like the thought that we are still together, in the same Universe, and some day we will get to meet again and share the adventures of many lifetimes.  But I’m going to keep feeling guilty about everything – just in case I’m wrong.

Someone needs you.

Posted on by New At This

There are a number of children wandering through this world that call me Mom. Some of them are “bonus” kids I was blessed with as part of a romantic relationship, some of them are the informal adoption of kids who I have a connection to, and three of them I carried under my heart for nine months before they made their entrance into the world. Some of those kids chose college, and some of them didn’t. Over the years, they have collectively held jobs across a wide range of industries. The various paths these kids have chosen to travel will lead them to very different destinations, but each of them is on an amazing journey.  

A little background info on the kids I gave birth to. I have been blessed with one girl and two boys. My sons are in the military, my daughter went to school to be a massage therapist, but found that she makes more money waiting tables and she (usually) enjoys it, so that is what she does for a living. Awhile back, I was preparing for a road trip to see my youngest son graduate from basic training. I was talking to my daughter, who had said she wanted to go with me. During the conversation, she told me that there was just no way she could afford to make the trip and she hoped I wasn’t disappointed in her. I assured her that I was only disappointed she could not go, but I was very proud of her. We talked through what she was feeling and the conversation ended on a positive note, but it really got me thinking. 

Currently, there is this prevailing attitude that certain jobs, especially those that are white collar, or public safety, healthcare, or military, are more respectable while jobs in the “blue collar” or service industries are considered less important than other jobs. It is easy to see the importance in some of those jobs. We know the value of nurses and teachers and firefighters and police officers. I have a lot of respect for my sons for deciding to join the military. The work they are doing is important and necessary. I am proud of them, that goes without saying. But I am also proud of my daughter. Her job is also important and necessary. It is not somehow less honorable than the job her brothers do, and we, as a society, need to understand that. We need to recognize that her contribution is just as important to society as a whole. Now, there are smarter, more famous, people talking about the institutional bias against blue-collar work so I am not going to get too far down that rabbit hole. Today, I am not going to rant about the socioeconomic impact of the service and trade industries. (If you don’t know who Mike Rowe is, you can google him and the work he is doing. He is much more eloquent and entertaining on that subject than I am capable of being.)

There are countless examples I could give you of momentary interactions everyone has, each day, with people in the service industries that can make a day better or worse: the cashier at Walmart, the barista at the coffee shop, the delivery driver who brings your pizza, the person who picks up your trash, all of these people touch our lives and the service they provide us is often taken for granted. Today, I want all of the people working those jobs to hear the lesson I hope my children have learned.

The work you are doing is important.

The fact that someone is willing to pay you to do a job means the job has value. The work you do in service and trade jobs is often hard, and dirty, and thankless. Every day, you will have to deal with people who make your job feel heavy and unrewarding. But trust me when I tell you that you are there for a reason. The universe has been conspiring to put you in exactly the right place, at the right time, to meet the people who really need you: 

The quiet man eating dinner alone in the restaurant was seated in your section because he needs you to be a smiling face who jokes with him when you take his order. Ever since his wife passed away, he doesn’t get out of the house much and you are the only person he has spoken to in a couple of days. 

The frazzled woman staying in that particular hotel is in that room because she needs the clean, inviting atmosphere you created when you cleaned it. She is traveling for work and she doesn’t want to be here. A hot shower before she crawls into bed may be the only luxury she has right now.

The distracted man waiting in your line at the convenience store needs your kind words when you authorize the pump and take his money. He has a long drive ahead of him, praying to get home to see someone he loves before it’s too late.

The exhausted mother waiting for a service call to make her TV work needs you to be kind while you fix a technology she barely understands. She has two toddlers at home and she already feels guilty that she lets them spend too much time watching Paw Patrol so that she can have some peace. 

The shy little boy who dropped his lunch tray in the school cafeteria needs you to reassure him while you mop up the mess. He is embarrassed, near tears, because people are laughing and staring. 

The excited dad ordering the kids meals needs you to joke with him and his kids while you punch in the order and get it bagged to go. He only gets to see them on the weekends and he wants every minute he spends with them to be happy. 

The nervous teenage girl who called roadside assistance needs you to ease her mind while you change her tire. She has never had a flat before and no one taught her to how to change it. 

No matter what kind of service you are providing, I promise someone needs the work you do, with the special gifts you bring to that job. 

Now, I am not implying that you will have a profound impact on every person you deal with. Most of your interactions will be fleeting and forgettable. But, there is no way of knowing which of the people you help today will need you. People are (too often) fighting an invisible battle that you will never know about. Every day you will encounter someone who is struggling to hold it together: through the battle of a divorce or breakup; through the loss of a loved one, a job, a home, a pet; through illness, injury, or heartache. There will be days when your smile, your kind words, your service, will make a difference. You can be the kind stranger whose unknowing encouragement gives them strength. Maybe, just maybe, you can change the course of a person’s day through the service you provide, and it is in those moments, day by day that lives are changed. 

Chaos and Magic and Growing Up

Posted on by New At This

Back in the 90’s there was this cool (weird?) fad that became popular – the “Magic Eye” stereo-gram poster. The posters themselves were chaotic, somewhat awkward and ugly (and by somewhat I mean seriously, “Why would you hang that in your room” ugly), but if you stared at the chaos long enough, in just the right way, a cool, hidden, 3D image of something would pop off the page. Trust me, this was not the weirdest thing about the 90’s but it happened, so…whatever. The reason I bring up those posters is that you could stare at the same poster a dozen times and never see that 3D image. Then suddenly one day, your focus would shift and BAM, like magic, there it was; from that point on, every time you looked at it, you would see what had been right in front of you all along.

The beginning of October I took a road trip with my middle child, who is my oldest boy child, who also happens to be old enough to buy his own beer now. (If you want to bond with your adult children, I do not recommend spending 36 straight hours in a Ford Focus. Around hour 31 you start to notice how weirdly your travel companion breathes and WHY ARE YOU BREATHING SO OFTEN. Minor irritations are magnified when you have been trapped together in a car for that long.)

We were cruising down the interstate in the middle of North Carolina. I was behind the wheel and the boy was riding shotgun. There was music playing, small talk happening, it was just a regular moment, almost exactly like the 1,478 moments that had elapsed since we set out the day before. This moment was absolutely nothing special. Until.

I remember glancing to my right, to check a mirror, or observe the scenery, or something inane. I just glanced to right, the same way I had multiple times in the last 1,611 miles, and I noticed my son sitting beside me. Only this time, for the first time, he wasn’t a boy.

I have been looking at my son almost every day for all of his life. I can’t say that we are besties, but we have a good relationship, and even before he moved back in (that’s a different story) he was not opposed to stopping at mom’s house to grab some free food and use my laundry facilities. I know he is a grown up. I mean, I KNOW this. He is a member of a National Guard unit and spends one weekend a month, two weeks every summer, soldiering with heavy machinery and lots of weaponry. He buys his own alcohol and owns his own arsenal. The point is, I have had a few years to accept the fact that my baby is not a baby anymore.

But. But…when I look at him, he is a stereogram picture of an adult. I still see a lifetime of little boy moments: The excitement of Christmas morning; bright eyes staring in wonder at a new baby brother; tear stained face after a girl broke his heart. A lifetime of little boy memories crafted into the picture of him I carry in my heart.

When I saw him, from the corner of my eye, in the middle of that long road trip, I did not see the little boy giggles and awkward teenage angst. I finally saw what had been hiding amongst the chaos of colors and shapes I had been staring at for years. My boy is a man now. I see it, in the strength of his jawline and the weight of responsibility he has chosen to bear upon his shoulders. It lies naturally across his unshaved cheeks, covered in the stubble of two days travel.

Years ago, I dreamed that someday, my son would be a good man. Today, I see the man he has become and I know he has already exceeded my wildest dreams. This boy has taken pieces of childhood and crafted a man of honor, integrity, and humor much greater than the man my limited imagination could have conceived, the day he was first laid in my arms. The courage, determination, and compassion with which he approaches the world is nothing I was brave enough to imagine for him. I do not have the right words to explain the pride I feel when I see the man he has become. Like a 3D image, magically revealed within the chaos of a stereogram poster, I will never be able to “unsee” the man who has emerged from the memories of a little boy. Trust me, when you see it you will wonder how you ever missed it, because the transformation is magic.