School Dances, Making Lunch and Flat Irons

I woke up last week and realized that I am living with a daughter who is growing up.  It started with her coming downstairs after getting ready for school, hair flat ironed, lip gloss applied, asking for a cup of coffee (with about three cups of added flavored creamer because she doesn't actually like coffee, but all mature people drink coffee, so why not??)

My favorite coffee from my favorite coffee brand in my favorite delivery device...the K-Cup

I looked at her, as she swilled her Starbucks K-Cup, and thought, how did this happen?  Where is my little girl, who watches Dora and has an American Girl doll collection? In my mind, I am still buying her adorable outfits at Baby Gap.

This is the classic story all mothers tell...time goes too fast...they grow up so quickly...where do the years go...you know the drill. But, what I am really asking, is where the hell did all my time go?

More important than my daughter getting older, I am getting older. Old. And, I think I can safely say that as you age, the years go by on what feels like an exponential scale, versus linear.  We adopt our own middle aged version of dog years.  One year of adolescence is like 7 adult years.  Woof.

I am struggling with aging, because in my mind, I am still in my 20's. I have relevant conversations with my college age babysitters.  I dress well.  I read Us magazine.  I know all the latest pop stars (I think just saying "pop star" made me seem really old).

In case you aren't as young and hip as I am, this is Nicki Minaj. She is a pop star.

But despite my best efforts to stay young, it just can't happen.  You age, become less relevant to the younger generation and start using inevitable phrases like "when I was your age..." and "back before there were cell phones..." In the eyes of youth, no good story ever starts out that way. What's an old girl to do?

I've decided that instead of fretting about my downward spiral toward 50, I am going to embrace it.  After all, I've invested 16 years in my marriage and 12 years in my parenting career that have made me happier than anything else I've ever done.

I don't put the pressure on myself I did in my 20's to be the best, look the best, have the most friends and be in on the best social scene.  I am content to make popcorn with my kids as we watch a family movie on a lazy Friday night after we've all talked about our week.

I know who I am.  (In my mind, the best gift of maturing) And once you know who you are, you can help your kids figure out who they are.  Self awareness is the key to not letting people, situations and life in general ruin your day.

So even though part of me is sad to see Sophie getting older because it means that I am too, I am eager with the anticipation of who she'll become and the life she'll lead.  She's off to school dances and packing her own lunch.  She asks me if I need help with anything and she is starting to babysit. She does her own homework and is begging for a cell phone. She is taking the baby steps toward maturity. And while it gives me a bittersweet pang to know she'll need me less and less, I hold her up, like a bubble, let her go and whisper, "float..."

This is my Sophie, 12 years ago. The years do go by...

Loss, Life and the Ties that Bind

This week, my family suffered a tragic loss. My brother-in-law, only 29 years old, unexpectedly died.  Once whole, we are a family minus one. A family that lost a limb but can always feel it, like it is still a part of our body.

Grief affects us on many levels.  I feel the loss as a sister; I feel the pain as a wife watching her husband grapple with no longer having his brother; and I struggle as a mother to watch my in-laws deal with the worst type of loss, the loss of your child. There are truly no words to put to it. 

It's as if our family has been saddled with a collective heaviness, taking us down like a stone into black water, no bottom in sight. 

This very personal loss was made all the more painful because we learned of his death on the eve of September 11...a day already part of our national consciousness that binds us together by a shared suffering. Even 11 years later, we watch old footage of that day and remember where we were, who we were with and what we were doing down to the most insignificant details.  It marks a dividing line in life.  Life before September 11 and life after it.  Now, I will remember life before September 10 and life after it.

If September 11 taught me anything, it taught me the connectedness of humanity.  When we strip away every negative thing we can do to or feel toward one another, we are all connected by love.  What other explanation could there be for the rescue work, the volunteers and the outpouring of human decency that outshone the terrible acts that befell us?  Watching neighborhood streets lined with American flags filled me with the promise that we are united. Yes, united in grief, but united in the bigger hope that grief lessens because love gets larger. And I believe that for my family. We are united in grief, but our love is larger.

September 11 also taught me to not take the people I love for granted, as much as that is possible.  As humans, we are not capable of treating everyone everyday like it is the last chance we may have to be with them.  But, this week, I was reminded again that we never know the hour or the place or the circumstances.

This week has been bleak. It has been grim.  It has been dark from all sides.  Two days that mean nothing but loss and ache.  But, because we are human, we know in the deepest part of ourselves that life is for the living, so we go on.

The saying "the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts" is true of family.  We are all made better by the family members that surround us, even the ones no longer with us.  They are the ones that pull us up from the black waters, fixing our eyes on the horizon that lies ahead and calling us forth, into life.