Being Me Being Forty Being Me

It's a wonder 40 can even stand on its own, given all the things we have managed to attach to it.

Forty.

It's so- Significant.  

Even though - technically speaking - 35 is more mid-life, 40 has managed to be the shining beacon.  The flag in the rock.  The all-too-cliché 'top of the hill'.

There hasn't been a birthday I had, was aware of, and didn't love.  LOVE.  (Did you catch that?  I love my birthdays.)  Older people would wearily tell me that I would soon tire of birthday joy; it would wear off as I got older.  I would mature and my birthday would become drudgery.

Nope.

WHY.  Why would I become indifferent to a personal new year?  Why would I rather be dead than celebrating a birthday (because, let's face it folks, those are the only two options).  (Are they?  What if one has a birthday while battling disease? Or facing the death of a dearly beloved?)  So, okay.  I'll allow for Special Circumstances.  (Hang on a second.  Is life not Black and White?!  No.  -shock, awe, panic-)  Yeah yeah okay gray areas.  (See? I'm mature.)

I digress.

Day above ground and all that.  So we arrive here at 40.  I arrive here at 40.  I'm 40.  (I know.  Bet you didn't see that one coming.)  (OMG enough with the parentheses already.)

Because I am excellent at math, at age 38 it only took me a few hours of calculations to realise that I would soon be 40.  (ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?)

Because I am the best at making decisions, it only took me 10 or 30 years or so to realise I needed to love and take care of myself and then decide to do it.

Because I am the single most disciplined person I know (I can't even keep a straight face with this one) I immediately snapped into action and got my shit together.  (Excuse me while I ROTFL for a bit).

Okay.  Okay okay.  Okay I'm ready.  (ROTFL)

No really.  I'm really ready this time.

I did though.  Not immediately but I worked hard and I began to discover, find, and get my shit together. And all jokes aside, I had really been doing the work of discovery over the course of my third decade careening through space.  Hurtling?  Careening.  No, Spinning.  Spinning through space. Much more accurate.

I rediscovered my feet and began to stand on them again.  I discovered my voice and tried it out.  (Still working on that one).  I moved into the spaces of myself.  (What even does that mean? I don't know but it sounds right, okay?)  It was like- filling out deflated parts.  You know when you're inflating a shaped thing and it takes a while for some of the parts to fill out so the thing looks not-quite-right for the first bit?  Like that. Like air (me) was finally getting into the fine details (parts of me).   Feeling more defined, I am.

In more ways than many.  Which leads me to the Touches* part of my post.  The physical aspect of my work.  Time to be get serious about being healthy and strong.  In love.  Not to punish, not to whip, not to force, not to shame, not to hate.  To LOVE my whole self and to care for my whole self (I'm talking about my body here.)  After decades of self hatred, I'd worked hard enough, come far enough, understood myself enough to be kind to myself.  I was ready to move past (had been climbing up the mountain of) the mess that was how I felt about my body.  (Let's use the standard issue Can Of Worms as a point of reference.  What I faced, dealt with, worked through, was the entire agricultural industry that produces the Cans Of worms.)  I will not heap the details upon you because I like you, but it truly was Something.  Everything at times.  And to be transparent, I'm not even really done yet.  (Is one ever really, though?)

So I began the work of self care.  I learned about self discipline. I learned that I can do more than I think.  I learned that I often think more than I do.  I learned that you have to do the hard thing and that it will most certainly not get easier if you wait.  I learned that life, multifaceted as it is, is an many ways a series of hard things and that shying away from them doesn't serve me.

I accepted pain.
I accepted struggle.
I accepted discomfort.

I resist pain.
I resist struggle.
I resist discomfort.

I will accept pain.
I can accept struggle.
I do accept discomfort.

I am beginning to understand how to keep doing the hard things.  Small and large.  Small like, get up anyway.  Big like Keep Going.

Keep going.  There is no destination.  Now is the destination.  Here is the destination.  Present is the destination.  Over and over and over again.  I am learning the truth that the journey is the destination.

In this process I have metamorphosed.  Am metamorphosing.  I'm not sure I have done anything; rather I remain in a state of doing.  I did complete a triathlon but I don't feel finished.  Even if I never do another one, I am still living that.  Still being shaped by the effort, by the challenges, the outcome. I have worked off many pounds.  And I am still living that.  I am astounded to have learned that I enjoy jogging.  ME.  I am actually enjoying the dreaded exercise. ME.  It is literally changing me.

The story keeps being written.  

So much of the story is present participle.  I am writing.  I am learning.  I am figuring.  I am hoping.  I am thinking.  I am planning.  I am reflecting.  Listening. Searching. Questioning.  Failing.  Taking.  Giving.  Succeeding.  Defying.  Resisting.  Releasing. Accepting.  Puzzling.  Wondering.  Waiting.  Going.  Staying.  I am Hurtling.  Laughing.  Feeling. Doing.  Being.

Breathing.

-Ing.

Forty so far is totally fucking amazing.  It's everything I'd heard.  I feel it only gets better.  This decade promises to be one of ... I don't know.  Exciting adventures of being myself, the ongoing project.

30s me did a great job setting the stage.
40s me is running with it.  (A pair of scissors, I mean.) (Obvs.)

Run girl.  Run.  Or walk.  Whatever.
Just.
Keep Going.

*Touches - A Jamaican term for sensitive. 

Surprisingly, A Poem

It's dark lite. 
Not yet today.
No longer last night.
     Middletime.
 
Stillness cradles.
Hush resounds.

Stairs creaking.
Lamp casting.
Memories of dreams
   fade.
I begin to assemble
   myself.

Two legs, two wheels
accoutrements
off I go.

Chasing myself 
the long way
home.

An Open Letter

To my oldest friend and ally,

Greetings!  I hope this finds you well.  This is my very first letter to you, in all the years (almost 40 of them) I've known you.  While I don't expect a response, I hope you appreciate what I have to say.

I start by confessing that we've had an off at first, on, then off again, then on again relationship over the years.  I ask that you kindly note that the off times generally included the presence of a baby. 

I recall the early days when we were just getting to know each other.  Our budding relationship was fraught.  There were grave misgivings.  There was not even the tiniest inkling of trust.  You terrified me. I know now that I was frightened to tears that you were going to take me away.  (To be fair to me, you were so mysterious and unpredictable.)

To your credit, you never gave up.  You cooed and cajoled.  You gently embraced.  You called softly to me and I learned to fall into your arms and feel safe.  And I grew to love you. Even to long for you when we weren't together.  And so we had so many years of happiness together. 

Until.

Until we didn't. 

Oh my beloved!  Your stoicism leaves much room for my imagination so I can't say how it was for you, but for me? It was torture!  Instead of long, languid visits together, instead of your warm embrace, instead, my love, of us melting together there was upheaval and seemingly endless intrusions on our time together. The less you were there, the more I craved your peace.  I cliché as I say here that I felt I was going mad - but I really did.  My sense of reality was distorted.  Time became a tangle without you.  I remained upright.  But only just.

During that time, there were innumerable occasions on which I marveled that there was ever a time that I didn't love and trust you implicitly.  What a fool I was!

As soon as I possibly could, I worked - (really "crawled" is a better choice (hmm, might we really go for it and say "dragged"?))- my way back to you.  And like the steadfastly faithful friend you are, there you were quietly waiting, ready.  I- harrowed, harangued, bewildered, tormented- I fell hard and gratefully into your soporific arms. 

After all those years, you were still there for me.  My friend.  It changed me for the better to be reunited with you.  I was a new woman!  Upright became standing, standing became standing tall.  Things were great between us again! And so it was. 

But now?  Something is happening and it alarms (let's not get too hasty) concerns me.  You come to visit, yes, but you don't stay as long and sometimes you don't even come in, instead lingering on the periphery.  Or else you leave early or come-and-go, rather like a person caught in a revolving door. You're changing, my friend.  I say you because I am still coming to see you.  Calling. I still talk about you with my friends.  I often think about you as the afternoon wanes, a small yearning for our time together later. My desire to be with you hasn't changed. 

I want to know what is happening and how I can fix it.

I won't give up.  I know we still have something; we always will. 

Why don't you come by at around 11:30 tonight and let's do our best to stay together for about seven hours? And let's try again and again.  Every single night.

So Very Faithfully Yours,

Milkshaken

The Caterpillar and The Butterfly

This post has been low temp slow cooking for a while.  It's being borne out of and by the inherent sorrow that belongs exclusively to parenthood.  It's a peculiar brand as it inextricably entangled with joy and gratitude. 

It's the changing of the caterpillar into a butterfly.  Over and over and over and over and over (ad infinitum (we hope)) again. 

It's watching your baby grow older.  Rather, watching your baby continually being replaced by newer, older, bigger, differenter versions of herself.  Of himself.

Last night, as I tucked my 10 year old boy in for the last time, we talked a little about how in the morning, he'd have been replaced by an 11 year old.  At the grave risk of being even more melodramatic - a mini-death is what we'd called it.  We smiled together about it.  It was copacetic.  

Which brings me back to the metaphor that seems to be held as the fertile ground of hope (proof?) that things don't really end, they just change.  The caterpillar becoming the butterfly.  It would be easy to think the caterpillar has died. Especially as we see him ensconced in his cocoon.  But if we wait long enough.  If we are still and patient, we will be rewarded. A new and beautiful creature will emerge to greet us.  But what of the caterpillar? He can't be recognized in the butterfly!  Yet, we know.  We know the caterpillar is in there.  Somewhere.  Everywhere.



Who could have known (except all the mothers and fathers before, with, and after me) that special sorrow? That heartcrack, the edges of which are coated with joy. Hands fly to face, to heart, to reach, to hold, to grasp the flash of time. The impossibly subtle shifts that suddenly become glaring and terrifyingly beautiful bounds of growth, of new person.

I beg you to forgive me for the clumsiness of this language.  I am in rather a clumsy state as a whirl and turn, bewildered at having arrived here almost without knowing how.

In the short space of 4 days I've celebrated my firstborn becoming a teenager and my second born firmly establishing his foothold in the double digits and stepping into the realm of the tween.

It seems so odd and silly, doesn't it?  It seems contrary that I should feel this way.  This little (I lied.  This rather embarrassingly large) heartbreak.  This fishing line (trawler's net?) of sorrow plumbing the depths of my love, joy and general state of awe at being the mother of these two completely other people.  One would imagine only happiness that they are growing and healthy and happy and thriving.  Pride at the achievements and the people they are being and becoming. Wonder all the things that are uniquely their own.  All the good feelings.

And yes.  Yes to all those things and more.  (Pictured here are a pair of animé eyes with those oversized pupils and reflection spots, all wide-eyed shining with awe.)

One might be confounded at the very notion of sadness coming to roost in the midst of these wonderful things.  What's there to be sad about?

But it is.  It is sad.   All the farewells.  All the goodbyes.  All the ends of all the stages (remember when...?).   The disappearances of the hand-held baby, the busy toddler, the curious little kid, the rapidly developing bigger kid.  These are hinged on, are flip sides of, the joyful appearances of all the same versions. 

Here I stand greeting two new people. 
A teenager has arrived.  My little girl has gone.
A tween has arrived. My little boy is going.

It's pure, radiant joy.  It's deep, beautiful sorrow.

I suspect that this may be the sweetest sorrow there is. 

Boredom Matters

"I'm borrrrrrrrred."

Even as an only child for the first 11 years of my life, being "bored" was not an option.  Obviously, I did actually experience boredom, but I wouldn't dare say as much to my mother.  That was a lesson well learned after I said that once, maybe twice, and was told that no, I wasn't bored because I could find something to do.

And I always did.  Find something to do.

(Here I insert the gentle disclaimer that this is not, in any way a techno-bashing post.  Far from it.  It is however, a pro less-techno-time commentary.)  (Did you get that?  That was weird language.) (Sorry about all the parentheses.) (That was the last set.  I promise. (Okay, well this set is. Scout's honor.))

Boredom was and continues to be the source of many creative endeavors.  (Some less desirable, I admit.  It's not all roses, people.  We know this.)  

Sadly, the art of being bored is a dying one.  People are being entertained at every turn.  Phones dominate as the go-to nothing-to-do object.  Waiting in line?  Take out your phone.  Waiting for someone in your car?  Phone.  Sitting at lunch alone?  Phone.  Pooping?  Phone.   Phone phone phone.

The same is true for our kids.  iPads and handhelds are all.  over.  the show.  
Out to dinner with kids?  iPad.  Downtime after school?  iPad.  Car trip?  iPad.  iPad iPad iPad.  

There is just no time to be bored, sitting aimlessly with yourself and not having anything to do or look at or think about.  No empty spaces between the sentences of our lives.  And I think it's costing us.  Obviously, I'm a mom and not a researcher.  I don't actually know the real result (if any) of being entertained from morning to night. 

But I do know what happens when my own kids are bored. 

They find something to do.  A thing they would not otherwise have sought.  A thing they may have thought seemed, itself, boring.  A thing that will reveal new things to themselves; sometimes even about themselves.  And sometimes not.  Sometimes it's just a way to pass the time that ends up being only a notch above complete boredom.  However, a thing to do it remains.

My son - like many sons before him, as well as sons that are happening now, and most definitely those to come - has an umbilical attachment to screen time.  If he's not on the desktop, he's on the iPad.  If he's not on the iPad, he's on the Wii.  If he's not on the Wii, he's on his iPod.  If he has no access to any of them - he becomes a pinball around our home.  Literally going from chair to chair, room to room, place to endless place with the zing and energy of a giant electron.  There is jumping and bouncing and singing and a wide and interesting range of potentially annoying behaviors.* 

And then, after he has practically broken his skull open he finds something to do.  Dust gets blown off games or puzzles.  Books get dragged off the shelf.  Toys often neglected come out and see the light of play.  Super hero characters are created.  Things.  Happen. 

Boredom matters.  It's a seed for creativity within the right environment.  (Mischief in the wrong one. Probably all you need is an adult to help ensure safety for it to be "right".)

Take some time for yourself, give some time to your kiddo.  Make space for boredom creative action.




____________________________________________________________________

* For the record and in the interest of sharing our managerial method both of my children each get one hour of recreational screen time (PC Games usually) each evening.  Two hours on the Saturdays and Sundays. 

They also have homeschooling screen time during the day for math (Khan and Timez Attack), science videos, second language, and geography.

Happy Wonderer

I am a happy wonderer.

And no, that's not a spelling mistake.

I really am.  I really do.  I wonder.  

I wonder why.

I wonder how.

I wonder if.

There is so much that needs to be wondered about.  And what that makes me is a very killed cat. 

Wonder, curiosity, and awe are the most fun lenses through which to view the world. It's how I live, and it's how my children have lived. 

The simple act of asking why has the potential to reveal so much.  I love that. 

Why is that?

2014 Inventory

[Cold open:]
My Mariana Trench of a daughter has grown some 3 to 4 inches this year.  She is literally turning into another person before my very eyes.  She has begun wearing the veil of pre-teen mystery.  Puberty has come to roost in our home and I am working really hard at learning the language, customs and ways.  Even so, I still stare in awe whenever I know it's not looking.

My Big Bang of a son continues to reveal both of our selves to me.  I shake my head in disbelief at how much of him there is to know.  He may not have shot up like bamboo but he has exploded a little and revealed more dimensions of himself.  In some moments I glimpse a ghost of who I might have been.  Who I still am -a little bit.

Obviously I have always been conscious of my children as people, individuals.  Yet their individual person-ness keeps catching me; like fireworks.

Boom! Poof!  Pop!  Colors! Shapes!
Wow.  Wow.  Wowwww.   
Yes, but you've seen these already; you know these fireworks.
I know I know.  But STILL.  WOW.  Look at that.  LOOK. 

She calls herself Unifox.  She is so much that: a creature I have never seen before and want to get close to without scaring her off.  She has a whole internal life that is such a mystery to me.  Not unlike her dear old dad.  Still waters and all that.  She is writing a book.  In Minecraft.  She is taken with all things Japanese (animé, manga, sushi, origami), and foxes.  She emails me to tell me crucial, life changing information.

He has long called himself ScienceGuy.  In this way, he is my unpredictable experiment.  What if I add a little ---?  BOOM!  Okay, no.  How about if I...?-  Fizzle.  No.  Okay.  What about this?  How about that? Too much this?  Not enough that?  Tweak. Adjust. Fiddle.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Night and Day.  Sun and Moon.  In and Out.  Up and Down.  They are the most opposite of opposites.  They are the oppositest people I know.  Well.  Next to me and "MilkStirred" (haha, that's a good one.  It's totally spot on.  I'm shaken, he's stirred.  I love it).   She is daddy, he is me. 

They are sitting together at the table, the serving bowl with the last serving of eggs left; hers.  She begins to scoop the eggs one spoon at a time into her plate.  Her brother looks at her, slightly baffled, and asks "Why don't you just DUMP them out? It's all yours anyway."

Witnessing this I have a third person dejavu experience.  That exact scenario has played out for me and "Stirred" countless times before.  It comes down to me saying "Big picture?!" and him saying "Details." It's the same for Brother and Sister. 

Dear sweet Unifox can and does focus on doing one thing for an extended period.  She will fold origami, sculpt tiny animals, draw pictures, prepare a recipe.  She takes her time.  She does that thing until it is finished.

Popping ScienceGuy does things in bursts (unless it's playing video games): Five minutes of sword play, five minutes of aimless tumbling and rolling around the living space, 10 minutes of watching and harassing sister with whatever she's doing, seven and a half minutes of reading.  Even eating.  Eating!  For the meals he eats solo (lunch usually) he takes a bite or two then gets up do do nothing specific, goes back and bites barely sitting on the seat and then he's up again.  For water, for a bathroom break, to wonder over to another area and fiddle with something.

I so appreciate having been around for these moments.  To have greater understanding of the people I am guiding and teaching.  People tell me they cannot imagine homeschooling their kids.  And I get that everyone has different things they are able to do with joy.  But I cannot imagine sending my kids back to school.  I would miss SO MUCH.

I would miss my boy reading upside down; his head on the floor the book propped upside down on the coffee table leg.

I would miss my girl making truffles for her friends; and making the pretty little origami boxes to gift them in.

I would miss them giving each other tips on minecraft mods and installing different features.

I would miss reading about Odysseus' wild adventures to them.
I would miss news segments, presented eagerly by my boy, about the amazing things he learned about that people are doing and creating in the scientific community.
I would miss spontaneous fire circles in the backyard.

I would miss the really detailed drawings my girl takes so much time to do.

 
I would even miss being there to push my son through the hard things. Watching him and helping him to overcome a crippling fear of "it's too hard" (defeated tears and all) and come out the other side shining with the victory of having done it.
I would miss "mommy math"; breaking out the cubes, using the floor tiles, drawing the pies and cakes to turn data in to real life and real life into data.

I would totally miss liquid nitrogen fun at our friend's home.

I would miss them reading so many books and loving it.
I would miss my girl teaching herself to sew a dress from my old blouses.

I would miss going out on the boat to the mangrove cays and exploring them with our friends.

But I didn't.  I didn't miss it.  I was here.  We were here.  And I am beyond thankful.

I experience the gamut of emotions of being a parent; from soaring pride to desperate lostness to unending love to losing my shit.  Sometimes within a few moments of each other.  There are many, many, many (manymanymanymanymanyMANY) hours spent mulling and replaying and questioning what we do.  How can I do this better?  How can I help him do this?  How can I give her that?

Even the odd "OMYGAD! I CANNOT! DO! THIS! Yes I can.... but it's harrrrrrrrrrdddddd!!!!" moment. 

I fall short in so many things.  Some of them I know, some of them I don't.

The point is.  What's the point?

The point is.

The point is Yes.  Thanks.  Awesome.  I'll do it again.  And I'll do it a little bit better.  And a little bit worse.  

We've got so much to see and do.  There is only there is only the horizon in front of us.

And I'll see you back here, on this little rock that is hurtling through time and space, sometime over the course of its orbit around a star.

And above all, be kind.  To yourself and others.