My kids are getting older. We all know this, it happens every second, every minute, every year. It happens to the best of us, and it is the best thing that can happen. I’ve written about it in many ways, with longing and nostalgia, with fear, with fortitude and determination. Since my husband’s father died two weeks ago, something has stirred within me--taken everything in my soul and given it a tremor. Maybe that is partly the reason for my new way of seeing the aging of my children. Death can put things you’ve set on the back burner into a sudden boil, or in my case, a slow rising simmer.
My children are 13, 11, and 9. Which translated into my mother speak means, about to leave me, about to hit puberty (one step closer to leaving me), and will soon no longer sit on my lap. It’s hard to give words to what I’m feeling. I feel like the English language doesn’t provide them for me. I need interpretive dance or a language that better supports the nuances of feelings of a parent who had a shitty childhood and now wants to create a better one for their children. There is a sense now of immediacy for me, like this is it, this is the show. All the years before were a dress rehearsal.
Now, when I snap, when I fail to have a quality parenting day with my children, I have this global comprehension that this is a ship that has sailed, that I’ve not only just missed the opportunity to foster something that will shape them into happy, confidant creatures, but I have potentially created a traumatic memory that they will carry into adulthood. When they were three, well, I could have a bad day and feel like they would forget it, or I’d have years and years to balance out that bad day. Now, it feels like seconds.
This might sound like self berating, the kind of thing a friend would tell you, and you’d say, no, no, you’re being too hard on yourself. Everyone feels that way, or putting this kind of pressure on yourself can’t be good for you or for them. If what I’ve written has elicited these types of thoughts from you, it is because of the above mentioned shortcomings of the English language and/or because you cannot see my interpretive dance.
If, however, it has made you want to say, “You’re right, perhaps you should go onto some sort of anti-anxiety medication until they are out of the house because Joan Crawford called and she wants her job back,” or “Maybe you should quit your job, write a book, and clean your house before earwigs eat your children,” you might be getting what I am saying.
I am unfulfilled. People who are unfulfilled are less happy, less energetic. Taking up the challenge of learning swimming, following through on running, these are things that have helped. One of my wisest friends once told me that I need something that feeds me. Being unfulfilled was okay when I thought I was the only one who would suffer. But now when I see it through a parental lens of how this might be affecting my children and affecting them now...It has become a puzzle I feel I have to solve. Something that needs rectification. I used to think having children would make me happy. It has, it has given me more pleasure and meaning in my life than I could even imagine. But now it seems that having children is the thing that is driving me to discover HOW to be happy. I must admit, I feel better just writing this. And seriously, I have no wire hangers, but there are a lot earwigs about.
