Spring has finally sprung in our part of the world, and it seems long overdue. And with it comes the usual springtime rites of passage, prom and graduation, which ushers yet another crop of young people into the adult world they have dreamed of for so long. Since I am harboring one of these budding adults under my own roof, I have had substantial opportunity these last few weeks to observe, up close and personal, the transformation.
It has brought to mind the Biblical passage from Ecclesiastes 3.
"There is a time for everything,
And a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace."
If you have spent much time with a high school senior at this time of the year, you will find that the last few weeks of school can include most of those times, sometimes all at the same time. As your child pulls away from you, they tear down what has worked for so long, and try to rebuild, on their own terms, what will work for them going forward.
It can be a painful and difficult process, and few children do it well. Few parents do, either, even when you have done it before. You are renegotiating your traditional roles, trying to find a new equilibrium. You are learning how to be adults together, instead of the adult-child relationship that you have held for so long, and the growing pains are often surprisingly agonizing.
The next few weeks will bring the end of an era to my household, and it is an emotional and exciting time for everyone involved. Senior year is a fast ride on a short track, and it goes so fast you barely have time to catch your breath and it's already over. It is a whirlwind of activities, each "last" moment speeding by in a blur. Long before you are ready for it, you find yourself sitting in a seat watching your young adult process with a lot of other equally young adults, and you realize they have changed before your very eyes, and the future is already here.
As we approach this momentous place in our life journey together, that fork in the road where she makes her own choices, and goes forward on her own, I find my sense of what is truly important has changed rather drastically from the days of diapers and legos underfoot.
When my son was little, I was set to be the perfect parent. I remember holding him in my arms and thinking, I will do everything right, and we will never, ever have a moment of conflict. Right. That worked out well. I didn't understand that conflict comes, not because you have done anything wrong, but because children are hard wired to test their boundaries, and they do so on a regular basis, just to see whether those boundaries still hold them.
I remember believing that if I didn't allow my little tyke to have a gun, he would never want to have one. That also worked out really well, right up until he was about two, and started using his finger as the gun I wouldn't let him have. Wake up call, anyone?!
My daughter loved Barbie dolls, even though, as a Serious Mom, I didn't want to allow that overendowed hussy in my house. Before we were done, we had the house, the convertible, the spa, and more clothes than Barbie could wear in a lifetime.
Looking back, I realize none of that was as important as the time I spent reading to them before bed. Exposing them to music developed their appreciation in ways I would never have dreamed. Encouraging questions, and taking them seriously contributed to children who constantly question and expand their knowledge and understanding of the world.
As I approach this new phase of life, where I am sitting in the bleachers instead of being out on the playing field with them (thanks Dr. Miller!,) I have realized anew that the things that matter most cannot be bought or endowed. They are earned, through the power of being present in the lives of the children you brought to life.
As I look backward at the last 25 years, my only regrets, and they are few and far between, are in time not spent, words not said, hugs not given. I did the best I could each and every day, and at the end of the day, I usually could look in the mirror and know that I had done my best, and it was good enough.
To anyone at the beginning of the journey, especially if you are overwhelmed at the busyness and the demands of your life, know that the only thing that will really matter in the end is the time you have spent with your child. It matters far less what you are doing, than that you are doing something, anything, to build the ties that will bind you to each other for life.
I would not be the person I am today without the two people I brought into this world. The changes, both big and small, have not always been easy to accomplish, but they make me a better person today.
As the seasons change, and spring turns to summer, I wish you sunny days even when it rains, and moon beams every night. I wish you laughter and tears, hope and despair, courage and fear, and a few stones skipped over the water on a lazy summer day. I wish you the journey I have been privileged to take, and I encourage you to embrace the present. Then the future will take care of itself.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Ironing out life's little wrinkles....
Life is full of raw irony. When you are holding down the middle ground on the aging timeline, it becomes all too apparent that not only is life unpredictable, it is downright impossible.
For example, who would have imagined that the daughter who screamed at the very sight of a car seat for the first year of her life would turn out to love driving more than anyone else in the family? I can, even now, visualize her red little nose and her dripping eyes as I stuffed her into the dreaded seat which would confine her for the entire ten minutes it would take to get anywhere. She would look at me with salty disdain from her perch in the center of the back seat, angry and unforgiving, until I pulled her out again.
When she got a little older, she got more enterprising, and put her brain power to work on thwarting me in my quest for ultimate safety. I would buckle her in and sit down in the driver's seat to pull away when, pouf, there she would be, hanging over the seat, clutching me around the neck in a death grip. This maneuver was usually accompanied by a wailing sound, and it wasn't always the kid.
Ultimately, you can shove a child into their car seat, but you cannot make them sit there, and she won. I got a booster seat, which was the first of many negotiated automobile compromises to come. While I knew it wasn't really up to approved safety standards, it was better than a two year old hurtling around unrestrained in the interior of the moving car. Ultimately, in the interests of ever leaving the driveway again, I had to give in.
Ironically, as I said earlier, that same child is now firmly planted in the driver's seat of her car every chance she gets, and loves the power and the feel of the car on the road. In fact, she would rather drive than do almost anything. The car that once confined her is now her ticket to the larger world outside her home, and she rushes here and there with unrestrained passion for the freedom she now enjoys.
As a parent, I find irony in much that happens in life. I have spent the last 25 years making myself obsolete, only to find that I don't want to let go. Just when your children get to be interesting people, they suddenly want to spend time with everyone but you. The same children whose impeccable manners are widely praised by everyone else cannot remember the most common courtesy at home.
There is also irony in being an adult "child." I have seen my friends and relatives struggle with the caretaking of a parent that is no longer able to do so for themselves. Instead of depending on the adults who have cared for them their entire lives, suddenly, the roles are reversed, and they are now taking care of their parents. It is a difficult transition, both mentally and emotionally, for both parties.
All their lives, my children have heard, "I am the parent, you are the child, and that means I am in charge." How ironic it will be when suddenly the child holds all the cards, and I won't have a deck any more. Hopefully they will be old enough that their memories will be failing.
Ironies come in all shapes and sizes, of course. It is one of life's smaller ironies that the number of red lights you will have to stop for is directly proportional to how late you left the driveway. If you left on time for a dinner party, or, even better, early, you will have the green light express and arrive 20 minutes before the hostess has gotten out of her shower. If you left five minutes after the last second, it will take you 40 minutes to go ten miles, and you will arrive after dessert is on the table.
Mixed in one way, flour and water make paste. Ironically, mixed another way, they make lefse, the Norwegian version of a tortilla. One is inedible, the other is delectable. Sweet irony.
Irony is defined by people differently, I think, meaning that what I consider to be ironic, you may not. For example, I find it ironic that I ended up with two children, because when I was in college, I was never going to have any at all. I also find it ironic that every appliance goes bad at once, that we fertilize the grass so we can cut it down, and that eating "natural" and organic foods is more costly than shipping in chemically preserved foods from the other side of the world.
I find it ironic that there are permanent press clothes, which are always wrinkled. Does anyone else find it ironic that the garage door always breaks when you are on the inside and can't get out, rather than stopped outside, and struggling to get in?
Mother Nature is full of irony. Beautiful roses also have thorns. Honey bees have stingers. Ten minutes is forever standing in line, but flies by when you are on the ride. Water is so soft and formless it just washes over you, but it can also carve deep canyons that can be seen from outer space.
There is an old saying, strike while the iron's hot. Although you can get burned, a little irony goes a long ways in removing the wrinkles from life. It's up to you - do you want your life to be safely permanent press, or are you going to take the chance of getting scorched on the hot iron?
I say get out the ironing board!
For example, who would have imagined that the daughter who screamed at the very sight of a car seat for the first year of her life would turn out to love driving more than anyone else in the family? I can, even now, visualize her red little nose and her dripping eyes as I stuffed her into the dreaded seat which would confine her for the entire ten minutes it would take to get anywhere. She would look at me with salty disdain from her perch in the center of the back seat, angry and unforgiving, until I pulled her out again.
When she got a little older, she got more enterprising, and put her brain power to work on thwarting me in my quest for ultimate safety. I would buckle her in and sit down in the driver's seat to pull away when, pouf, there she would be, hanging over the seat, clutching me around the neck in a death grip. This maneuver was usually accompanied by a wailing sound, and it wasn't always the kid.
Ultimately, you can shove a child into their car seat, but you cannot make them sit there, and she won. I got a booster seat, which was the first of many negotiated automobile compromises to come. While I knew it wasn't really up to approved safety standards, it was better than a two year old hurtling around unrestrained in the interior of the moving car. Ultimately, in the interests of ever leaving the driveway again, I had to give in.
Ironically, as I said earlier, that same child is now firmly planted in the driver's seat of her car every chance she gets, and loves the power and the feel of the car on the road. In fact, she would rather drive than do almost anything. The car that once confined her is now her ticket to the larger world outside her home, and she rushes here and there with unrestrained passion for the freedom she now enjoys.
As a parent, I find irony in much that happens in life. I have spent the last 25 years making myself obsolete, only to find that I don't want to let go. Just when your children get to be interesting people, they suddenly want to spend time with everyone but you. The same children whose impeccable manners are widely praised by everyone else cannot remember the most common courtesy at home.
There is also irony in being an adult "child." I have seen my friends and relatives struggle with the caretaking of a parent that is no longer able to do so for themselves. Instead of depending on the adults who have cared for them their entire lives, suddenly, the roles are reversed, and they are now taking care of their parents. It is a difficult transition, both mentally and emotionally, for both parties.
All their lives, my children have heard, "I am the parent, you are the child, and that means I am in charge." How ironic it will be when suddenly the child holds all the cards, and I won't have a deck any more. Hopefully they will be old enough that their memories will be failing.
Ironies come in all shapes and sizes, of course. It is one of life's smaller ironies that the number of red lights you will have to stop for is directly proportional to how late you left the driveway. If you left on time for a dinner party, or, even better, early, you will have the green light express and arrive 20 minutes before the hostess has gotten out of her shower. If you left five minutes after the last second, it will take you 40 minutes to go ten miles, and you will arrive after dessert is on the table.
Mixed in one way, flour and water make paste. Ironically, mixed another way, they make lefse, the Norwegian version of a tortilla. One is inedible, the other is delectable. Sweet irony.
Irony is defined by people differently, I think, meaning that what I consider to be ironic, you may not. For example, I find it ironic that I ended up with two children, because when I was in college, I was never going to have any at all. I also find it ironic that every appliance goes bad at once, that we fertilize the grass so we can cut it down, and that eating "natural" and organic foods is more costly than shipping in chemically preserved foods from the other side of the world.
I find it ironic that there are permanent press clothes, which are always wrinkled. Does anyone else find it ironic that the garage door always breaks when you are on the inside and can't get out, rather than stopped outside, and struggling to get in?
Mother Nature is full of irony. Beautiful roses also have thorns. Honey bees have stingers. Ten minutes is forever standing in line, but flies by when you are on the ride. Water is so soft and formless it just washes over you, but it can also carve deep canyons that can be seen from outer space.
There is an old saying, strike while the iron's hot. Although you can get burned, a little irony goes a long ways in removing the wrinkles from life. It's up to you - do you want your life to be safely permanent press, or are you going to take the chance of getting scorched on the hot iron?
I say get out the ironing board!
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