In a few short days this house will officially be full of teenagers. Your brother, already fourteen, your stepfather acting sixteen, and you, finally, thirteen.
We have come a long way, you and I. Every day a new stage, a new challenge. From your sensitivity to light and sounds, textures and tastes, to wearing rain boots everywhere, in every season, we have figured it out, slowly... painfully... and made our way to here. Truth be told I didn't think you'd make it to the teen years, I thought one of us would break at some point along the way and throw in the towel. But what neither of us could ever know is that the emotions that fuel us both exponentially magnified our ability to deal with whatever came our way, and left us stronger and more able to fight, after of course, two Advil and a good solid nap.
I see that face of yours. Round and slightly freckled, your deep brown eyes, giant smile, and I'd be amiss to not say that you look a lot like your father. Your quick wit, sarcasm, and charming your way out of anything, reminds me of why I married him and stayed for far too long. It would be easy to say that the frustration I feel is magnified by your physical similarities, but it is not. Because while his genetics are there, I have raised you, and all the qualities I adore and loathe about you, are the ones I have struggled with myself, my whole life.
Our compassion, creative thinking, and inventiveness could change the world, if it was not held back by our temper, moodiness, stubbornness, and futile defiance. Focused and untamed, you can move mountains, or dig in your heels and create a trench it could swallow a small village. Your passion and creativity is like lightning in a bottle. Opened carefully your light will be blinding but beautiful, but left capped will become volatile, leaving shards of glass in it's wake. If you spend a quarter of the energy doing instead of resisting, you'd defy logic in what you could accomplish, and I'd be far less exhausted.
I suppose that's quintessential essence of the teen years though, the testing, the moodiness, the defiance. I get it. I'm annoying. I am always bugging you, constantly on your case, and forever just... there. In. Your. Face. Just like Grammie was in mine. Believing I want you to be perfect, you dig in to become everything imperfect, making everything an argument, as that day's chosen ultimate act of defiance. But you are smarter than I was, as I rebelled in the typical teenage ways. Your rebellion is staying up late reading books, refusing to cut your hair, and failing out of Math class for by refusing to do your homework. Homework, which takes you all of 10 minutes to complete, because the class is far below your ability. Your rebellion is calculated, each step like a well thought out chess match, waiting out the next move but ultimately setting your self up for the win, not the win you're capable of, but a win none the less.
There is a fine line between teenage angst and needing medication. We often straddle that line, and I struggle with it everyday. Had your father gotten help, had his mother been present in his younger years, maybe he would not have become the man that he was. I am present whether you want me to be or not. I will make you eat, you will grow, and you will be strong. I will let you fail, but I will not fail you. You are capable of great things, Youngest. Fueled by lighting and lava there is nothing you can not overtake and conquer. Your perfect imperfection will someday change the world, but ultimately it will be up to you if it is as a natural disaster, or a natural wonder.
Showing posts with label Youngest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Youngest. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Saturday, August 30, 2014
End Of Summer....
There's a key chain that I carry in my purse for all my key tags from the various shops that I visit. It seems for a while there, that every store had a value card, and eventually I had so many that they needed to be moved off the ring with the actual keys and onto a ring all of their own. So I moved them.
The key chain is has a leather strap that holds a 3 dimensional, bronze-ish letter "J" with Mickey Mouse standing by it's side. To some, it may be just another novelty picked last minute off the register racks at Disney World. But for me, it marked the beginning. Hand picked, just for me, by a nine year old boy while on a trip with his Dad to Disney.
On Monday, that nine year old turned 20.
We joke about the key chain now, first that I would not remember what he bought me, and second that I still have it. Over the years even I can not believe that it has not been lost or broken, yet there it resides at the bottom of my purse. This life I have now is so far from where it was then. I picked flowers from the garden this week. The hydrangeas almost never bloomed although they had been established for years. Two years ago we moved them and Tony, the yard Nazi that he is, watered them religiously. Now they produce flowers the size of dish plates in pink, purple, blue, and white.
This past weekend we finished replacing the patio out back. Tony dug it all up and relayed some of the stones. A few days later, I laid a few more. A week later, he laid out some more while I was at work and I picked up the extra slate that we needed on my way home. He filled the seams, three day later Youngest and I filled some more and when he got home from work he touched it up and finished it off.
In the end we have a beautiful new patio, completed together, but separately, which is sometimes the way we work best. It took me a long time to figure that out. That we can work on something together but not side by side.
On Tuesday we celebrated our 3rd year of marriage together, but not side by side. Which, in it's own way was good, as we both needed to be exactly where we were. He needed to be focused on his extended family and I took the boys to the local pond for one last day of swimming and then for dinner at our favorite ice cream shop. After all, the last day of summer vacation is as good a reason as any for ice cream for dinner.
On Wednesday Oldest started his last year of middle school. Youngest started seventh grade, the midpoint of his schooling years and as we all know too well, the down hill roll is faster than the climb. We had to stop at a friend's house on the way home from the pond Tuesday night. They were playing basketball with her son, also fast becoming a young man, and I wondered how it all happened. How Bonus Brother turned 20. How Oldest's voice had already changed. How Youngest had come into his own fiercely independent person, able to self advocate for his education and all of life's injustice. The summer, although no shorter than any other has been full, but yet there were so many could haves left undone and I wondered "Had I done enough?", "Had I been present enough?", "Will they have any memories?" Or will they just remember it as nothing special? Sure they have had opportunities and experiences that many kids dream of, but had they had enough of me? Had I been the Mom they needed? Would they ever look back and say that was the best thing? Would they remember the big things, or the tiny things that I would deem insignificant? Looking back I don't miss any stage of their growing up. Sixteen months apart, each stage was fast, intense, difficult, and loving. Most days I had no idea how I'd make it through, and in hindsight there is no apparent marker of when each phase ended and the next one started. But I can tell you that those days are over and now we're on to new and more challenging stuff, plagued with newness, difficulty, and love.
And hopefully memories.
Because if I have learned nothing else from my Mickey key chain, it's that our time with them is finite. Soon enough they will go on and make their own moments, memories, and mistakes. My hope is that one day they can recall the moments when I was the mom that they needed, and through those memories slow down time just for a bit, so I can relive it all again.
Exactly as it all happened.
Because as fast as it's going, I wouldn't change a thing.
The key chain is has a leather strap that holds a 3 dimensional, bronze-ish letter "J" with Mickey Mouse standing by it's side. To some, it may be just another novelty picked last minute off the register racks at Disney World. But for me, it marked the beginning. Hand picked, just for me, by a nine year old boy while on a trip with his Dad to Disney.
On Monday, that nine year old turned 20.
We joke about the key chain now, first that I would not remember what he bought me, and second that I still have it. Over the years even I can not believe that it has not been lost or broken, yet there it resides at the bottom of my purse. This life I have now is so far from where it was then. I picked flowers from the garden this week. The hydrangeas almost never bloomed although they had been established for years. Two years ago we moved them and Tony, the yard Nazi that he is, watered them religiously. Now they produce flowers the size of dish plates in pink, purple, blue, and white.
This past weekend we finished replacing the patio out back. Tony dug it all up and relayed some of the stones. A few days later, I laid a few more. A week later, he laid out some more while I was at work and I picked up the extra slate that we needed on my way home. He filled the seams, three day later Youngest and I filled some more and when he got home from work he touched it up and finished it off.
In the end we have a beautiful new patio, completed together, but separately, which is sometimes the way we work best. It took me a long time to figure that out. That we can work on something together but not side by side.
On Tuesday we celebrated our 3rd year of marriage together, but not side by side. Which, in it's own way was good, as we both needed to be exactly where we were. He needed to be focused on his extended family and I took the boys to the local pond for one last day of swimming and then for dinner at our favorite ice cream shop. After all, the last day of summer vacation is as good a reason as any for ice cream for dinner.
On Wednesday Oldest started his last year of middle school. Youngest started seventh grade, the midpoint of his schooling years and as we all know too well, the down hill roll is faster than the climb. We had to stop at a friend's house on the way home from the pond Tuesday night. They were playing basketball with her son, also fast becoming a young man, and I wondered how it all happened. How Bonus Brother turned 20. How Oldest's voice had already changed. How Youngest had come into his own fiercely independent person, able to self advocate for his education and all of life's injustice. The summer, although no shorter than any other has been full, but yet there were so many could haves left undone and I wondered "Had I done enough?", "Had I been present enough?", "Will they have any memories?" Or will they just remember it as nothing special? Sure they have had opportunities and experiences that many kids dream of, but had they had enough of me? Had I been the Mom they needed? Would they ever look back and say that was the best thing? Would they remember the big things, or the tiny things that I would deem insignificant? Looking back I don't miss any stage of their growing up. Sixteen months apart, each stage was fast, intense, difficult, and loving. Most days I had no idea how I'd make it through, and in hindsight there is no apparent marker of when each phase ended and the next one started. But I can tell you that those days are over and now we're on to new and more challenging stuff, plagued with newness, difficulty, and love.
And hopefully memories.
Because if I have learned nothing else from my Mickey key chain, it's that our time with them is finite. Soon enough they will go on and make their own moments, memories, and mistakes. My hope is that one day they can recall the moments when I was the mom that they needed, and through those memories slow down time just for a bit, so I can relive it all again.
Exactly as it all happened.
Because as fast as it's going, I wouldn't change a thing.
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