"Mom, how do I register for Rosedale?"
"Look it up online. I. Don't. Know." I continued to fold towels, stacking the green, the brown, the ivory in a nice, neat orderly stack. Exactly how I was not feeling at that moment.
I think there was more said, because it seems like I always say more, even when I don't need to, but that was the gist of the beginnings of me shutting her down, closing her off. And for what purpose?
Sigh.
The hour was late. She had just watched The Passion of The Christ and may have been feeling a little more emotional than usual and I was just getting tired and may have been a little more irrational than usual. The question felt like it was shot from a bow and it was the arrow.
It may have pierced my heart just a little. That part of me that says, "I don't want my chicks to leave the nest. I'm not ready." But they are ready….. sigh.
"Amy, I'm sorry I jumped on you like that. You just always spring these things at me and I am not prepared." (She has no idea how true that is.)
"I know. I always pick the wrong time." (And now I see just how much I close her off, shut her down. To her, maybe what that says is, "You never have time for me." Deep breath.)
"Oh Amy, I don't think there is ever a right time with me. I'm always busy, but I am interested and I want to help. I'm sorry I reacted like that. I just feel like I should have all the answers to these college questions, but I don't."
That's another thing. I hate, hate, hate feeling inadequate in anything, but when it comes to being supermom who has the FAFSA's turned in the first eligible day, has all the forms with all the correct documentation in their proper file, knows how to navigate the financial aid nightmare, know how to find the cheapest books online, etc, etc, etc. ….I am not this woman. I don't like that very much and it makes me immediately on the defensive. Like my children are looking at me, shaking their heads and saying, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, who is the grown-up here?"
Strike One: My babies are all growing up, much too quickly and even when I am happy for them, I am sad too.
Strike Two: I don't know how to navigate various colleges. Yes, I went to college. Somehow I figured it out then and I can do it again, but it makes my head spin and my procrastinator go into high-gear. I just don't want to mess it up, so I don't even start. I avoid it like the plagues of Egypt.
Strike Three: This all makes me see that I am growing older, but not necessarily wiser. Shucks. It's not that I want to stay 25 forever; I don't. Somehow the years are slipping by faster the older I get and I'd just like it to slow down sometimes.
Three strikes. Does that mean I'm out of the game? I. Don't. Think. So. In fact, I think it means that this game is on. A challenge as it were, to turn this game around.
Homerun #1: Leo and I have worked together raising our babies. We are delighted at the glimpses of the adults we see emerging in the younger ones, and are proud of the ones already blossomed into adulthood. I need to allow them flight. They all amaze me. Period.
Homerun #2: I may not be the college expert in the house, but I can certainly keep trying. After all, I have two more after this one to get through. I may be the resident expert by the year 2022. There's always hope.
Homerun #3: Yes, I am getting older. Aren't we all? I need to embrace it, not try to erase it. Don't people always say, "The best is yet to come."? And if that's true, I've got fifty-ish more years to enjoy whatever God has planned for me. That is, if I make a choice, a conscious choice, to embrace it.
And that my friends, is how to hit it out of the ballpark.
Love,
Dianne
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