Letting go

I think I have completely lost it. My son’s Bar Mitzvah is in exactly one week and I just broke down sobbing in the middle of Summer Winds plant nursery while trying to select a few trees to beautify the front entry of our home. My husband, a bit taken aback by my sudden onset hysteria, asked me what seemed to be so upsetting about two Red leaf banana trees and a flat of succulents. To which my only reply was, “They’re going to die. They’re all going to die.”

You see while many may miss the logic of my distress, it is more than obvious to me what is transpiring inside my twisted psyche. My baby boy is becoming an adult, at least in Jewish terms. What does that mean? It means in 5 years he’s off to college, then grad school maybe, a job, a marriage, his own family. The cycle continues. The same will happen with my youngest, at least that’s what I hope and wish for. But it also means that my reasons for existing are only temporary and will go off to live their own miraculous lives and leave me as a distant (and likely annoying) memory. This feels unbearable to me.

I complain bitterly about never having enough time to do the things I want to do, to read the books I want to read and write the stories I want to write. The pressures to work and mother and create meaningful art overwhelm me most of the time. But the reality that in the not-too-distant future I’ll have nothing but time is the most painful acknowledgement of life’s tragic progression that I’ve ever experienced.

I am fully aware that I was somebody else once; before I was a mother. I was somebody who lived alone and went out with friends, who always cleaned up her dishes after she ate, who worked 80 hours a week and went to the gym whenever she felt like it and sometimes just laid around the house watching reruns of “Dick Van Dyke” and “I Love Lucy.” But I don’t do those things anymore, mostly because I’m too busy running errands, supervising homework detail, carpooling or doing perpetual loads of laundry. Yet suddenly it seems impossible to imagine meaning in any life that doesn’t include my eternal sorrow over dirty socks on the floor, unpicked up dog poop in the yard, or two day old breakfast dishes still sitting at the table wistfully hoping that some thoughtful child will place them neatly in the dishwasher.

I don’t enjoy every moment I have with my boys. For that I am grief-stricken. I waste the precious time we have being angry about stupid things and longing for time to be alone, with my own thoughts, my own agenda. Can it be different? Can anyone keep her eye on the essential reality that everything is fleeting, that each moment brings us closer to loss, emptiness and solitude? How can anyone live life with that kind of uber-awareness? Ernest Becker explains in The Denial of Death,“To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything.” Getting caught up in the minutia is our only escape from the devastating reality before us.

I long to appreciate the fleeting moments I still have with my children. I promise to try to relish every second in this tumultuous week of family drama, party plans and Bar Mitzvah preparation. My goal is to celebrate the amazing young man my son is becoming, to love him with every ounce of my being, and to joyfully release him to become his own man and forge his own path through life.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Sniff sniff. It’s not likely to be an easy week.

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I’m gonna make it after all…really?

Imagine Mary with two boys, a husband and endless loads of laundry.

Note to self: when vacationing without children, do not go anywhere particularly kid-friendly. I say this because I’m out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with my husband enjoying some seriously needed down time. Not much to do. Nowhere to be. Simple pleasures of hiking, biking, moose-watching, and so on. But there are kids everywhere. And each one is cuter than the next. Why? Because they’re not mine. And on top of that, the whole “absence makes the heart grow fonder” stuff is definitely true. I miss my kids.

I miss them so much it hurts. That seems weird to me. Because most of the time that I’m with them I spend fantasizing about being away from them. Don’t get me wrong. I adore my children. But trying to manage a home, pursue a meaningful career, and take care of two young boys is more than overwhelming to me. I want to be the June Cleaver of sitcom fame. But I’m not. I’m more a child-laden version of Mary Richards from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Imagine me, in the middle of a snowy Minnesota roadway, tossing my infamous beret into the air and trying to catch it victoriously while also reigning in two impish little creatures who think it’s just fun to dart into the street between racing taxi cabs. It’s really not a workable scenario.

I really am torn between being a full-time mother and using my time on the planet to create meaning for myself personally. It’s a conundrum in which many of us find ourselves. We gave up lucrative and often fulfilling professions to be moms. We don’t regret it exactly. We know, deep in our souls, that bringing precious life into this world and raising it with care, love and respect, is clearly our highest calling. But that doesn’t help get us through the daily monotony that clouds our psyches and makes us question the reason for our very existence.

This vacation was supposed to help me relax. Help me stop struggling with the big issues that harass me on a daily basis. But seeing all these kids and happy families makes me feel selfish and more like a maternal failure than ever before. Why am I here alone, without my kids, when everyone else seems to be managing exceedingly well with their children in tow. None of these mommies needed “alone” time. They all look perfectly well adjusted, capable and happy. What is wrong with me?

Maybe next year I’ll go somewhere where they don’t allow kids. “Out of sight out of mind” as they say. Perhaps I’ll find a nice all-inclusive adult-only resort somewhere in the Bahamas where I wont feel bad about myself for being there. Of course, there’ll probably be tons of childless women there who wont have c-section scars or cellulite. That might highlight a whole different class of personal flaws for me. I guess maybe I just can’t win.

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You’re every bit as old as you feel!

Jack Johnson at Cricket Pavilion last week

You know those moments when you’re suddenly, and painfully, aware of how old you are? Well, they’re coming more frequently these days and let me say, they suck! My most recent realization came Sunday night at the Jack Johnson concert at Cricket Pavilion. I know, it’s just asking for embarrassment to go to a rock concert as a middle aged mother of two. But we really like Jack Johnson. So we forged ahead, certain that there would be a healthy representation of baby boomers and gen-xers mixed into the youthful audience melange.

We’ve actually gone to several concerts this year. We saw Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in Prescott this winter. It was part of their Arts Center season and we were by far the youngest in the audience. Then we went to Vegas to see Garth Brooks. Yes, I admit it. I LOVE HIM! But there too, there was a plentiful number of, shall we say, mature audience members.

Last night I felt like that old brown banana in the fruit bowl, you know the one nobody will eat because it’s too mushy. It just sits there forever, until you bring home a new bunch of hard green ones from the store and finally decide to toss it or use it as compost.

It started when we got there a bit before 7. Well, that’s what time our tickets said the concert began. Can you say “out of touch?” We actually told our sitter that we’d be home around 10 thinking three hours was more than enough time for a thorough sampling of Jack’s greatest hits. We were a bit surprised by the plethora of empty seats surrounding us. Finally, after 2 hours of warm up bands, we remembered that stars like Jack Johnson don’t open their own shows. The wise youngsters in the house arrived a few moments before 9:30 when Jack finally stepped onto the stage. We seriously contemplated going home before he even began. Life is definitely more limiting when you wake up between 4 and 5 a.m. every morning.

We were happy we stayed. The concert was amazing. We even spotted a few families with young kids in the pit. That helped soften the sight of thousands of college coeds spreading out in all directions. And I guess we should be happy that not a single one asked us to buy them an adult libation, an act I remember performing on several occasions when I was a mere underage student looking for an alcohol buzz.

But my question is this: why does life have to stop when you hit middle age? Why weren’t there more people in our age bracket at this concert? His music is mostly mellow, has a great message, is beautifully arranged and artistically impressive. Why don’t middle aged people go to concerts? They’re fun. You get to dance and sing and let go for a few hours. That’s got to be healthy. I feel like we all run around tied up in knots, worrying about our work, our kids, our finances. It gets old, and so do we. We need to have more fun.

That’s it. I’m starting a red hat club for middle agers. Only we’re gonna wear togas, one of our generation’s most identifiable party icons, as an homage to John Belushi and “Animal House.” We will stop feeling out of place at nightclubs, poetry slams and concert venues. We will eat at “beautiful people” restaurants, and buy our way into VIP back rooms at all of the hottest clubs in town. We will play frisbee on the beach, drink more than we ought to, and gulp down a few Red Bulls to get through the work days after our wild and exotic nights of debauchery. We will make-out in public, show our bellies, pierce our noses. Middle agers of America, join with me in taking back fun. After all, we invented it in the first place, didn’t we?

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My summer vacation (from parenting)

I've always believed in the whole "absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing.

I miss my kids.

I’m happy. But I miss my kids.

This is always how I feel on vacation. I love getting away. I need to refresh, revitalize, re-engage with my husband. Life gets too tiring if you never take those well earned sabbaticals. But still, even knowing how important it is to take those breaks from mothering and just be a woman, a partner, a tourist, doesn’t make it any easier. Why is it that your kids seem exponentially cuter, sweeter, and more irresistible the minute you lose sight of them?

I’m a firm believer in absence making the heart grow fonder. Sometimes I think the whole purpose of going away is to get that rush of coming home feelings. My husband and I try to take adult only vacations every year or two. But most of the married couples I know have never taken a trip sans children. Truth be told, they don’t have relationships I envy. My parents travelled annually without my sister and me throughout my childhood. They left me with sitters, grandparents, or teachers who were happy to moonlight for a few extra bucks. It never dawned on them to give up their romantic getaways because they were parents. If anything, being parents made them realize how badly they needed time away to reconnect and remember why they’d come together in the first place.

My mom once told me without a modicum of regret that she put her husband first, even ahead of her two daughters. I think this was a fairly common sentiment amidst our parents’ generation. It went along with the whole “children should be seen and not heard” credo. But to put your adult desires ahead of your children’s perceived emotional requisites in today’s world is to commit the unthinkable. Only selfish, unfeeling parents would abandon their little ones for a week or two of adult adventure.

But allow me to challenge those beliefs for a moment. To all of you who wouldn’t think of leaving the little ones for a little grown-up R & R, ask yourselves this: If you took a few days to focus on you, to rebuild your partnership with your spouse, to reinvent yourselves as a couple, wouldn’t that be of value to your children? Isn’t part of our job as parents to model a healthy, loving adult relationship for our kids?

So take a day, a week, maybe even two (if you’ve got willing in-laws). But get away from being a parent for a while. You’ll be astounded by who you are when you return.