Separation Anxiety

I remember the first time Evie walked away from me to do a gymnastics end-of-the-year performance. She was 3 or 4 and I was wringing my hands. I couldn't believe that she was going to do something in a big arena, separate from me, with a lot of people she didn't know.
Wasn't she amazing?
Wasn't she something else?
Wasn't she howling in tears?
Howling.
Sobbing.
I think there may have been some muted screaming...



But she wouldn't stop.

My husband was sweating and Colleen was in distress. I handed over Brendan and went to the edge of the mat and said, "Evie, come here."
She kept doing donkey kicks while crying.
"Evie! Ev, come here!"
She shook her head no and kept on kicking.
"Ev. Ev. Ev. Evelyn get off the mat."

She wouldn't. She finished the whole routine she was supposed to do while sobbing.
I couldn't believe it.
I was amazed.
I was embarrassed.
I was flustered.
Mainly, though, I was amazed.

We went out for pizza after, her color back to normal and my husband breathing again, and I said, "Evie, why didn't you stop? If you were so upset, why would you stay?"

I don't remember her response. I know she shrugged. And I figure her answer was somewhere along the lines of, "because it was what I was supposed to do". Which is a shocker because she won't do things just because she is supposed to or has been asked to.

Well, maybe she will when asked by others, other than me or her siblings.
Maybe she will when it is hers and she wants to go through it. When she has put it to herself.

Five years later, I have had this girl leave my side repeatedly to compete in gymnastics meets. She can't be stopped. Our time together in general is limited. I leave her at 7:45am when I go to work. I leave her at 4pm when she goes into the gym for 3-4 hour practices, 4 days a week. We are quite good at being separated, but there is something about when she walks across some foreign gym's mats, away from me, that makes her seem small. Makes me feel small.

Makes me miss her.



All the time now she is encountering new skills she must practice and master in order to excel and strengthen her routines. Things that I call, "nuts", and some of which she calls, "easy".
Lately, she has encountered new skills that have frightened her.
And she just can't shake it.

And when she cries at practice out of frustration, I don't go to her, though I feel the wind of my heart's rush to meet her.
And when she cries at the meets from a missed chance, I'm not allowed to go to her.
Which is good, I suppose.
But very, very hard.
Very hard.
And when she is struggling, she won't ask for help.
She won't really talk about it unless she is fit to burst with the stress of it all.
Then she howls it.



I can't tell if she hears my advice- I know little of gymnastics, but I am pretty good at stress and fear in general. I don't know if she hears the dharma talks on the way to the gym, though I know she is listening, and I know she knows I put them on for her as much as me.

Anything my husband and I say to her she responds with, "I know."
Hm.
Well.
Does she REALLY know?
Did her saying she knew dismiss what I said?
Should I just shut the hell up?
I probably should shut the hell up.

Do I reach her?
Does she feel me with her when in distress?
Does she know I would spot her and buoy her all through her practices and meets if I could?
Does she know that I well up when she wells up?
That I cry when she beams?
That I am speechless with her every success because they are hers?
Just hers.
So separate from me.

I am now waiting to hear if she mastered a skill tonight. If she recaptured another skill that she lost in all her fear and worry.
I'm in this moment before my husband brings her home and she can fill me in.
I'm in this moment of wondering how her meet will go in a few days with all these flusters and flips and frustrations.
I keep repeating the word that I left her with today: Yatha-bhuta. Reality as it is.
I hug her when I say it.
She shrugs when she says it back.
It is what it is.
But it is so big because it is hers
and it is separate from me.
As it should be.

Yes, Colleen. There is a Santa Claus.

Colleen is 11 and had been hearing some crud about how some people don't believe in Santa for quite a while. I would say to her what my mother always said to me, "Santa is the Spirit of Christmas". It is a true statement and moves the child along who still has hope in their hearts. Unfortunately, on Friday, a substitute teacher told her plainly that there wasn't a Santa Claus, and a very sad and agitated Colleen came home to me.

As I leaned against her, side by side on a couch, and held her cheek against my shoulder, I explained that though a man doesn't come down the chimney and that I'm the one that bring her her gifts, Santa is the feeling I get when she opens her presents. Santa is in the excitement she and her siblings share all December. Santa is in the cutting down of our tree and is laced in every memory brought back by an ornament or Christmas decoration.

"Christmas is all heart, Colleen. And that is where Santa lives. He is real."

Santa is in the golden harp ornament my best friend, Stephanie, gave me the year that so many of my own ornaments smashed after my tree fell.

Santa is in the creche that Lisa bought for my kids a few years ago when I told her that one of them was curious about the the Christ in Christmas.

Santa is in Rebecca inviting us over to watch her family light the Menorah.

And then, yesterday, when a co-worker, Robin, heard about the spilled beans, she left a bell from the Polar Express in my mailbox for me to give Colleen. I ran up to her classroom and, with warning that I was about to do it, hugged her for understanding this sadness, for thinking of us, and for expressing the true meaning of the season. We teared up talking to one another about keeping dreams alive for our children. I said to her "THIS is Santa Claus!", gesturing to our emotion and to her kindness.

This weekend when I said it was time to formalize our letters to Santa, Colleen lead the charge. She turns on the Christmas tree. She is watching every streamable christmas show and movie. She came to me, pained, not being able to choose which present to get her sister and could she please give both. "It is the spirit of Christmas, right?" she twinkled at me. She has lost nothing more than an image of Christmas, keeping the meaning alive and thriving.

I always feel love and appreciation for those around me who hold me up, warm me, and care for me and my family. It is just that this time of year that when I feel it, it feels like a belly that's a bowl full of jelly, a twinkle in the eye, and a rosy cheeked laugh.
Santa is real.
And now we have the sweetest 11 year old elf helping to keep our spirit and love of the holiday alive.

Dear New Homeowner of the Red House

Dear New Home Owner of the Red House,

Though I can't ever picture moving out of this house, I know one day it will happen. As I sat here in the quiet and messy house, I felt a little resigned to the fact that when we move, you guys are going to find nerf bullets and hair elastics. No matter what I do, I will never have packed every lite brite peg. You will encounter it as you stumble across more storage space. Every hairball will not have been found. There will be tinsel and pine needles in a corner or embedded into a carpet. I'm sorry. We never have even had tinsel in this home, but I did growing up and that tinsel found its way into the ornaments I took when I cleaned out my parents' house. (Which probably wasn't completely cleared either)

There will be a matchbox car in one of the heating vents. There will be a Barbie shoe in a drawer. We will do the annoying thing of leaving paint cans in the basement for you to do touch-ups, and maybe a tarp or a tool in the garage because when we move, we won't be tarpin' and toolin', we hope. We won't be doing a darn thing.

I'm sorry about those two floor boards we never replaced and we had meant to change the trim color a long time ago, but.....weekends got away from us. There were nerf fights and competition hair. That nail polish stain that won't come out came with a really wonderful sister afternoon in the blue room. That loose bannister happened during a Saturday night fashion show we had to watch our kids put on. We sometimes cleaned the webs from outside the windows, but the suckers kept coming back. We sometimes raked and trimmed and pruned. We sometimes let the snow just cover it all until Spring inspiration hit again.

We have no idea what you will come across in the woods. Knowing that our children became teens in this house, I don't want to take any guesses. I know some wrecked club house will be out there. I won't venture more of a guess beyond one of their water bottles with a cute design worn off will be somewhere in the vicinity.

The Zen porch will hopefully leave its Zen-ness for you. I hope any heaviness has lifted from it and some creativity remains. I hope we cleared out all of the cat toy mice so you don't get a fright in the wood closet. I hope the warmth of the kitchen-the feeling of warmth since we probably never got around to new and better windows-gets left behind, too. Everyone was in there all the time. And make sure you get on that outdoor porch- we were so bad about using that space every minute of every warm day.

Sorry for the few grains of rice in the cupboard. Enjoy the generator we leave you.
Someone play that piano. Invite someone to a game of pool.
This house is meant to be filled with family and friends.
It is very tolerant of a little neglect, and does a great job of hiding clutter.
It should make you feel so completely at home.
But you already knew that. You chose it for just that reason.
Don't worry about forwarding us anything we may have left behind.
All we need stays with us.

All the best.

This Thanksgiving is a Gift

I think after the loss of a family member, it is pretty clear that the holidays are going to be prickly, surrounded by the thinnest layer of ice like one finds on a shallow puddle these cold mornings. Delicate.
All that water so close to the surface.
And I knew it was coming and saw my choices: maybe dive into the sadness or steel against it. I'm sure there are a lot of in betweens, too.

I was kind of shuffling back and forth like a boxer, trying to figure out what my move would be to this approaching holiday when the bell sounded. The match was canceled. My gloved hands fell to my side as I bewilderedly stared back at my husband.

"She isn't coming at all?"
"No, she doesn't feel well." he confirmed, talking about his mom.

We were quiet for a moment, both feeling out what to say and not say next.

"Should we go there?"
"No. She doesn't want anyone there. She doesn't feel well."
"Did you ask her?"
"Yes."
"For really reals you asked?"
"Yes."

Huh.

Hm.

We have no family coming to Thanksgiving.
All I have ever known was family coming to Thanksgiving.
I have no idea what this looks like. What this Thanksgiving is.

I don't need Linus coming out and saying "lo...." and having his speech about the true meaning of anything. I know the meaning of Thanksgiving is to give thanks and share love with one another and make some pie and bake some bread.

I have so many gifts around me that I don't have to name or list or count or share. Everyone knows. I am loud about it. My 3 children and my husband are my world, but my world, on Thanksgiving, has always been so much bigger. It has always had someone's brothers and someone's mother, and it used to have fathers, and it always had babies. Just this year, it will not.

I was blinking at it.

My husband is embracing the idea of change. We can do something completely different and enjoy it, a man who never favored the holiday or it's food. I can hear what he is saying and I can feel the turkey defrosting in the fridge. This day must occur. Food, parade, discomfort, more food.

I had about 18 hours of a little bah humbug creeping in. Nothing major. No need to be visited by ghosts or anything. And then my principal pointed at me while I was eating my lunch and said "I have a job for you. You will DJ our faculty/8th grade football game."

I will?
And then he pointed to my friend sitting next to me and recruited her as DJ, too.

What was originally a stunned, panicky feeling became a hilarious and wonderful time on the side of the field. I was struck by how much family I am surrounded by every day at work. I became the Grinch at the tip of the mountain, holding a sled aloft, heart 3 sizes too big.

I left school and went to the store and bought 2 new sleds and lots of candy for snowed in fun. I am going to make my kids help prepare the food (until I find that appropriately annoying) and we are going to decorate and my husband will build fires and we will maybe get our tree- he can saw that down.

This Thanksgiving is going to be different.
This Thanksgiving is going to be a gift.
I will toast those I miss with the love and joy of all I have.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Children Live Here

Why is my coaster on the floor? It isn't even an interesting coaster. It is an ugly fake cork temporary one until I find or make coasters I like. But it is on the floor.

Why are there random socks on the rug? Why are there socks on the stairs? What the heck with the socks?

Why is the vegetable peeler on the couch? Why is yarn dangling from the bannister? Who did this?

What is my colander doing on the porch? Why is MY comb not in my bathroom? What the heck is going on with the laundry basket on the driveway?

I haven't worn those high heels in forever. Why did I just trip on them? Who is in my closet doing this?

WHY is EVERY towel in ALL the lands crumpled at the foot of the bathroom sink?

Who did that to the cat? Why? Stop that with the cat.

Who put back the empty cartons? Empty jugs? Empty boxes? No thank you to a half eaten apple back in the fruit bowl.

Where is the remote? WHY is it upstairs? Every couch cushion is on the floor? Yes, every last one. Well now we can go see all the lost matches to the socks.

This is why no one is invited to dinner or for drinks. This is why we can't have nice THINGS. Don't you ever want nice things? Don't you want friends to BRING YOUR PARENTS WINE?

Put the cat back down.

Go to bed.

Not one more hug!

OK, one more hug.

GO to sleep.

When I say go to sleep I mean it so very much right now to happen now!

Good night.



Why is it so quiet?
It is eerie quiet.
Why am I so tired?

Karma

What is the deal with Karma? Is it for real? Is it coincidence with a fancy name? Consequence put in a higher power's hands?
I have been thinking about it a lot lately. It is an old belief that spans different religions. Some believe it is run by a higher power and others believe it is more of a natural cause and effect. 
It isn't Fate. 
It is a reaction not necessarily "due" a person, but caused by a persons' actions. We talk about it a lot as a payback, though. 
It originated more as what keeps balance in the world. It was interesting researching it a bit. Essentially there is no good and bad Karma then, right? 

Just Karma.

Though in my life there are plenty of times I could think of Karma, I think about it the most living off of rt 117. It is a hairy road to turn on to. Ever since moving here, I flash my lights and wave my hands to many cars that are trying to cross, turn on, or turn off of the road. I give many people the opportunity to get to where they are going without having to wait, some times of day easily 4 minutes, just to turn on to 117. SO many drivers look right through me. 
Nope. 
Nope. 
I am going. 
I am going to keep driving. 

Well, I don't. I figure the more people I wave on to that road, flooding them with relief from the waiting and intense concentration, the better. I allow such relief from the math problem: Timing + Velocity + Dick Factor 

Simplified: (T+V+DF=K)

This in turn should allow for more people to invite me to join the stream of traffic when I need to, right? Is that selfish?

I also think about it when I smile at a complete stranger or chat with an elderly person. You, complete stranger, need a smile. You need to chat. You are probably lonely. I will probably be lonely one day, too. I will need someone to smile at me when I am searching my 10 gallon purse for my wallet and holding up the line of tskers and heavy sighers. 

Or you know what? Maybe my mom will need someone to chat with her while in line at the pharmacy. Maybe my dad needed a smile after he stumbled a bit and looked around for a steady place to put his hand. Perhaps someone will help my child figure out a situation when I am not around. Maybe I am being attentive to others because someone was already attentive in my world? Maybe my good actions can go into the world and return to someone I love?  That sounds pretty lovely. 

Now, go forth and let me on the road.

Someday....

I told my husband this very seductive story last night.
It was about a time when, on the weekends, we will have nothing to do. How we will wonder what should we do to fill the day.
He interrupted my tale at once and said he didn't believe me.
"No, it is true! We will turn to Chronicle for ideas about where to go. We will stay at bed-and-breakfasts just to get out of the house...."
"You are making this up!" he said as he wiped the guts of a pumpkin from his hands so he could start carving.
"I mean it. You'll see!" I replied, itching my nose with my wrist, my hands sudsy from scrubbing a cheese grater, and getting splashed by the new dishes the sugared-up kids were throwing in the sink. "For reals!"
"We will never not have to do something." He was adamant.
"That is what all parents think and then suddenly we won't be needed."

On a Sunday night after a busy weekend, my words were a comfort to our weary selves.
As I woke to a quiet house, pre-dawn, my thinking about it has taken a well-rested turn in direction.
I will miss these weekends.
I will miss being needed.

With three kids, the being needed will wean out, thankfully, but it will happen. I am not sure how much longer I will hear "One more hug and kiss!" while I am trying to leave their bedroom at night. Sometimes? I drag my feet going back in to give it to them. I self talk- "they need this, they are asking for this, make sure they feel this love to send them to sleep." I could feel bad about the dragging feet, but I know I am not a bad parent for being done by 9pm. Days can be exhausting.

I am on the cusp of the possibility that my oldest will withdraw from me for a while. I can see the balancing act of it. When to return her hug fiercely, when to grab her for one on one. When to add the humor and when to remove it from a situation. When to let the slamming of a door go and when to march up there, young lady, and let her know what is what. Soon, that door will be open and the room quiet because she will be away in school or in her apartment, or in her house that I will hope hope hope is in my town or near by.

I remember when I lived in PA my mom told me I lived far away in the boonies. When I finally made it back to MA to live, my mom told me I lived too far away from the Cape. Now, 50 mins from her apartment in Boston, my mom took my hand and said "I wish you lived closer." And on quiet mornings like this, I know what she means. Me, too, mom.

Someday, my husband and I will have nothing to do. And those first few weekends, we are going to relish it. We are going to spin in it, and take road trips, and sit and read, and grocery shop together (my fantasy) and sleep in (his fantasy) and eat dinner at 9pm like we did when first married, and maybe move back to NYC. Or maybe he can convert my porch into an all season one and we'll just stay here forever where our kids have space to return. And we will count the days until they do. And we will keep busy getting their favorite foods and planning a winning outing we can all do together, and hope they have allotted us some time during their visit to hang out with us. We will be pretty bored by then I am sure.
And I hope they live closer.