Crying In The Car

I read a blogpost by my friend Linnea over at A Mindful Life LA about befriending negative emotions.  She talked about missing her oldest daughter, and crying in the car.  I wanted to hug her, and pat her on her sweet cheeks.  I kept telling myself though, that I would not let myself relate yet.  I wasn't ready to grieve my growing boy flying the nest yet.  He's still at home.  He still has senior year.  There's just too much to do to get him ready.

There's too much to do to get ME ready.

So I pretended I wasn't there yet.  I am not in the thick of it yet. Because I am made of stone, dammit.

Seriously, though, I used to be someone who cried at every sappy commercial.  I was pretty in touch with all those emotions, and enjoyed getting a little damp in the eyeballs, rolling around in that feeling.  It made me feel alive and connected to the world.

But things got really busy, and really real and life has gotten stressful.  Aging, man. I never thought I'd be THIS much of a grown up.  Where I sweat the small stuff.  But I sweat not only MY small stuff, but everyone else's small stuff AND all the big stuff.  I am SUPER sweaty. And some days I feel about a hundred and twenty years old.

Well, today the dam broke.  My husband and I were in the car, running errands.  We were talking in that distracted, disconnected way that you can when you've been married a long time and no longer have any hormones that force you to notice and delight in each other's every word.  We were heading home, and he had put his music on, and said casually when this song came on, "this really reminds me of the boy.  'fly and don't come down?', 'make thunder when you run'... I mean how he runs?!  with those beautiful feet of his...."

I'd heard this song before, and I knew it made me teary, but I kinda forgot.  I was listening and singing along with him one second, and then next thing I knew I started howling like a banshee... Weeping, singing, laughing.....

It made me realize how much I needed to feel.  How much I needed to release and to stop trying to distract myself from those feelings.

I am pretty glad though, that a) I wasn't driving, and b) that the boy wasn't in the car with us.

He's past the eye-rolling stage, for the most part, but I think it might have freaked him out a bit.

Anyway, here are the lyrics.  Kris Drever is a damn genius with a sad, real song.  And my husband is a damn genius for knowing exactly how to pick the locks on my cold, cold heart.

When The Shouting Is Over

Turn like a wheel
into the road into the next town
Take a drink, but buy your meal
out at the point we wait for tight lines.
Build a wall and make it high.
Don't deny your hungry brothers.
If you dig a well, make it deep
and if it spoils, then dig another.
Remember our faces every day
that you roam.*

Chorus:
When the race is run
and the shouting is all over
come on home **

Plow through the fields
push through the crowds, beg and steal
walk through walls, fill empty halls
stand where the magic meets the real***
fly and don't come down****
unless there's no one there to stop you
Make thunder when you run*****
know there's no one who can top you.
If you're tired
if you're down
We will never drop you**********

Chorus X2

*this is when my throat got really tight
**this made me groan and keen and say OHHHH a bit
***with this line I could picture him standing on the brink of his life, ready to fly, and I could no longer see out of my projectile crying eyeballs
****HELLO he wants to be a pilot and this line made me gasp for air and sob doubled over my seatbelt getting my knees wet with my snot
********full on ugly crying, scaring the other car next to us in traffic because they thought maybe I was crazy and might open my car door on the freeway and roll under the semi behind us.

Rewrite

Today began with a royal wedding, and got better from there.

Waking up in Trump's America every day is soul wearying, and I frequently wake in a panic, but this morning I woke up and saw a mixed race woman marry her prince in a cathedral while a black choir sang Stand By Me, and I think they put a spell on the whole day, because it just kept getting better.

I got back to sleep for one thing.  And when I woke up, I got to take my boy to Alaska Airline Aviation Day, and he got to talk to pilots and go in planes and get information from schools with pilot programs, and we took pictures and ate hot dogs and it was just swell.  I am in constant awe of his aviation knowledge.  Like music, flying comes second nature to him.  He is fluent in it, and to see him in his element brings me more than pride, it's pure joy.

Then tonight all three of us went to see Paul Simon in his Homeward Bound Farewell Tour, and it was like going to church.  When we got there, JH said "I don't want to generalize, but I MIGHT be the youngest person here".  Getting our bags checked, the man at security who was in his 60's said "Young man, do you even know who Paul Simon IS?"  "HECK yeah!  I've listened to his music all my life!"  "Good job, mom and dad!"  Then we ran into one of JH's old baseball coaches, who was genuinely so happy to see JH, as well as one of JH's doctors who is on my list of all time most important people in JH's health journey.  She was out with her husband and I almost didn't recognize her without her lab coat!  But it was so much fun to see her out of context, and I thought of her later when he was playing The Boy In The Bubble, and heard "medicine is magical and magical is art".  These are the days of miracle and wonder. Music does something to me.  I feel like I get plugged in to a universal energy and I am one with everything.  It was also like being in a time tunnel and all of the ages that I have been when touched by his music came rushing at me and surrounding me and holding me still in music's magical magnetic field.  I was in my early twenties listening to Graceland on my walkman, walking the hills of Queen Anne in Seattle, hanging out with my roommates; I was in my teens having been through my first heartbreak, riding in the backseat of my sister's car on the way to get a Christmas tree, crying while listening to Still Crazy After All These Years; I was nine years old, in the backseat of a car in San Francisco on a trip with that same sister, listening to Feelin' Groovy (which he played last night to punish himself for forgetting some lyrics to Cool Cool River because apparently he HATES Feelin' Groovy!); I was in my early forties, my toddler singing the wrong lyrics to Loves Me Like A Rock while sitting on my lap ("she loves me like a rock a pages"); and I was 56, right now, sitting next to my son and my husband, feeling all the grief of Mother and Child Reunion (Oh I would not give you false hope...), as well as this magic moment:  Before the concert, I told my guys about the "Still Crazy" story, about crying my eyes out in the back seat of the car.  When he played the first notes, my son, put his arm around me, pulled me in tight and kissed my forehead.  That moment is sealed forever in my memory, in that endorphin-infused place where happiness lives.  He was so giddy all night, and it was so much fun to be next to him and witness the way he soaks up music, how it moves him, how he knows those complex rhythms innately, and to reach around and touch my husband's shoulder and know that somehow we brought this magical energy into the world. We aren't perfect parents by any stretch, we fuck up a million different ways, but we keep trying.

Rewrite.

Help me, help me, help me, THANK YOU.

The First Last

Well, hello old friend!  It's been awhile!  The last time I was here was four years ago, JH was thirteen, and gangly and goofy and flighty.  He hadn't shaved yet, hadn't driven a car, and homework didn't keep him up nearly as late.  Now he drives, has a job, goes to school, is a drummer in a band, and for the love of all things holy take flight lessons.  We are getting ready to go on some college trips this summer.  When I started at my job, he was six.  Now,  I still work with elementary aged kids, and while I can remember him being at that stage, it was a long time ago.  I'm grateful for this blog because he was precious to me and I wrote about allllll of it.  When he became a teen, (and even before, going through puberty) I slowed way down on the blog because I wanted to make sure that I was not divulging too much private stuff.  I realized I was skating close to an edge - I didn't want to exploit our relationship, and I didn't want to write about anything that might embarrass him.  I also wanted to keep it for myself.  To hang on to it, and keep it precious to me.

So why the hell start up again?  Here's my reason - I have been having huge anxiety about him graduating from high school and going to college.  This in addition to living in Trump's America has begun to give me heart palpitations, and I'm realizing that maybe it's time to write about that, and one more thing....

I went back and read some of my old posts, and realized how much gratitude I had for all of it, how much beauty I saw and celebrated, and honestly I want to focus on that again.  This part of my life is very different.  I am very different.  I am older, not "mature" older, but OLDER older.  Heavier, greyer, busier... but also wiser, and I see myself fairly clearly.  Skin tags and all.  I have a lot of faults.  I will always try to be better, but I don't have any misconceptions that I will actually BE better.  But it's all in the trying.  Maybe by writing about it, by saying it out loud, it will ease my anxious mama heart and help me actually lift my face to the sun, instead of crab walking sideways, pinched and worried, through this stage of life.

At work we talk about "growth mindset" and one of the things we talk about a LOT is there is no "I can't".  Still, one of the things I struggle with the most is letting go.  Letting go.  It is the one thing in my life that comes close to "I can't".  It is so, so, so much harder than I ever imagined.

Before I conceived of conceiving, I naively thought that I would be a cool mom.  I would be in the arts, I would have my own life, I would be a pal, all of my child's friends would think I was the coolest.  Now I am fairly certain that all his friends think that the only thing separating me from being a helicopter parent is the lack of a rotor on my head.  When JH was about five, we went to Paris.  We were taking the Metro, and he was looking for the oncoming train and he stepped over that white line, the one that basically tells people STOP OR YOU MIGHT DIE.  He was talking to his dad, and I reached out and grabbed him with my hand, but it wasn't my hand that felt it - it was my womb.  It was like it dropped out between my legs, flopped around on the ground until it found him, sucked him back across that line and then hopped back up inside me.  I am going through a version of this now, not as visceral, but every bit as aching and emotional and vulnerable and out of fucking control.  Every time he heads out the door, I say "drive safe!" but my brain says "I am not going to let you relax until he is back through the door".  Now, just imagine that feeling, and add FLYING to the mix.  As in, HE is flying.  An airplane.  Yes, it's the absolute coolest, and after, hearing him talk about it (he is frighteningly knowledgeable) delights me from head to toe, but when he heads out for a lesson?  I want to throw myself around his ankles and not let go. "Dude, why are you dragging your mom around the tarmac for flight check?" "Sorry.  She just can't let go.  You'll get used to it.  I have.  Her sobbing has gotten a lot quieter."

So that's why I'm writing.  Because I CAN'T throw myself around his ankles.  I HAVE to let go.  And I have to find some of myself without him - to allow myself my mama pride, but also to find some of that badass chick I used to be before him.

Yeah, right.

"Hey, badass chick!  Why is your heart and your uterus flopping around on the ground like that?"

Thanks for reading while I shout out into the void.