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.

gingerdog

We have a friend at our house. Her name is Ginger. She doesn't poop or pee on the carpet, and she doesn't bark too much, and she lets our boy talk about anything and everything he can't or won't talk to us about. Missing his friends in LA, arguing with his mom, and most especially death. He's been big on the subject lately. I can't even mention his getting bigger anymore, because in his mind that means he's growing up, which means that I'm getting older, which means I'll die someday. It sends him to tears, but at least they're more manageable now. At first discovery of that thought, he was gripped with fear and it took forever to calm him down.

This morning he woke up and climbed into bed with me. Because my hormonal self is out of whack, I've been waking up too early, and I was already awake in bed, reading The New Yorker fiction issue, nursing a sinus headache along with my coffee. He brought Ginger in with him, and snuggled up and requested that I "puppet" Ginger.

He has a million stuffed animals, but only three make it into the regular "puppet" rotation: Ginger the dog, a bear we got in Paris that he named Linky, and JimPolarBear, a dirty little polar bear that speaks with an unlikely Southern accent (ask my husband). But Ginger is Mom's domain, and he loves her dearly, even when he is so mad at me that he can't see straight. The other day, after getting really riled at how unfair I was being (no more tv, clean up your toys - you know, the usual Cruel Dictator stuff), he stopped screaming at me long enough to ask me to puppet Ginger. Somehow she got him to calm down, and even though he didn't want me in the room, I had to be, and Ginger managed to impart a little wisdom and levity into a situation that I as mom couldn't. Even when I'm mad as a hornet, Ginger manages to be unfailingly patient and kind and reasonable. I'm grateful that we've stumbled on this tool. It wasn't my idea - I wish I had been that wise - it was his, and it's something that helps us both deal with things we have a hard time talking about.

It shouldn't surprise me. I used to be in the arts as an actor, and I worked a lot with children, and it was clear to me then that they could embrace things as big as their own feelings far better when it was at an artistic remove. It gave them tools to deal with huge issues.

Like death. This morning, he was telling Ginger about death. About how, when she grows up, he'll be old and then he'll die. And I had to swallow hard, because I suddenly felt the depth of his fear about my own demise. He made me bring her downstairs, so he could play her a "dying lullaby" on his piano. It was gorgeous, and he sang it so sweetly and solemnly, and it rhymed. (Those of you who know him won't be surprised at this, but those of you who don't, well, he's kind of a musical genius. No joke. I know it sounds like I'm just a proud mom, and I am, but this is clearly his gift, and who am I not to toot his horn!) Anyway, it was so moving, and brought both Ginger and mom to tears. I gave him a big hug, and told him how much I loved his song, and this is what he said to me:

"Mom. Your breath really stinks."

But for a few minutes, I felt like we had tackled the big stuff. I felt so grateful for my past in the arts, for my ability to commit to a character, to imagine and fly. But mostly I felt grateful for my son, because being his mom is the best gig in the world.