time passages

My son is a high school senior, thinking about college and the future.  I can't help but think about how I felt about my life when I was that age--so grown up, with the whole world ahead of me, wanting to make my own life and home.  How is it possible that my baby, this little creature who so totally transformed my life and made me a mommy, is at that same point?  I blinked, and now he's about to leave my nest.  I wonder if I captured enough moments in my mind and heart to keep a piece of him with me always.  I worry that I didn't create enough such moments for him to carry with him as he moves forward.  And I see his brother and sister, three years behind him on the same path, and I just can't believe we're already here, where we are in this life.

My life hasn't at all turned out the way I wanted it to.  By the time I was 30, I thought it had.  I had my master's degree, I had a husband who made me laugh, I had tenure at a job I loved, and I had my three little babies.  My life looked like it was going to be just what I wanted.  But then, well, life happened.  For the sake of my husband's career, we left a community we loved and I left my job to move to where we are.  The move was so challenging that I'm still not sure we've completed the transition.  As it turned out, the job that brought us here didn't last very long.  In order to stay with his organization, we would've had to uproot our family every three to four years.  We wouldn't be able to bear that, so my husband completely switched fields.

Then began the changing years.  We faced health challenges, money problems, unemployment, our kids' early teens, my gynecological problems, my husband's weight and heart problems.  Somehow we had started a downward spiral that completely changed the path we were on.  I'm not sure what to call this place where we are now.  The excitement of our future got buried in arguments, anxiety, depression, and I feel like I'm just now starting to wake up.  I don't recognize this place or my own reflection most days.  The kids are wonderful human beings, and I have no idea how they got to be that way.

I wonder about trying to get back to who I am, but I'm not sure if that person is there anymore.  I worry about becoming bitter and too cynical.  Outwardly, I'm amazed by how well I present myself to the world.  But inside, I'm not that person most of the time.  This life has been really, really hard.  The financial challenges we've faced during the past few years and especially the past few months were exacerbated by my husband's most recent unemployment (11 months already--what is with this?) have been overwhelming.  I have experienced constant daily stress.  I have worried about losing everything, including my mind.  We have had to make some difficult choices, and our ability to put our wonderful children through college has completely evaporated.  This is not the life I wanted for myself, and it certainly isn't the life I wanted to provide for my children.

How can I get up and do the best I can every day when I'm worried that I've damaged our lives beyond repair by not figuring out how to cope with the crap years ago?  With all of it right now, I'm facing daily decisions.  Every single day, I have to decide to sit down and deal with finances, pick up some things around the  house, get off the computer, live a real life.  But every day, I do.

As I've been connecting with more high school classmates on Facebook, I find myself drawn to their pictures.  I graduated more than 25 years ago.  My classmates and I have all built lives of our own.  I think back to the conversations we had back then about our futures, and I wonder how many of us are where we thought we would be when we were this age.  Their pictures tell stories of smiling happy lives, beautiful homes, fun and relaxing vacations, cute pets who never shed or pee on the carpet or yack up hairballs.  Part of me wants to call "do-over" so I can make the right decisions, the ones that won't lead to where I am at this very moment.

But then I also see behind their smiles and know that life can hurt us all, just as it can heal us.  The pictures we choose to put on Facebook are the ones where we are smiling.  We don't take pictures of the tears, we clean up the part that is the backdrop of the photo, we keep the scars and bruises of life's journey outside the frame of the picture.  And I yearn to reconnect with these people.  They are the ones who knew me when I most felt like me, when I had not yet experienced the joys and burdens of my life.  I want to tell them that I got over being so shy all the time, that my life does too revolve around writing (just not in the way that I thought), that I've somehow grown up.  I doubt that any of us knew that we would be where we are in life right now, but part of my identity is caught up in those conversations waiting for the school doors to open and wearing those dumb blue striped zip-up gym suits and working on the school paper and getting ready for musical performances.  I know that so many of these people are part of my heart, and I want to know that I am part of theirs as well.


And there goes my son, off to build his life.  I watch him, and I suddenly feel so old.  And so young again.

the times, they are a-changin'

Is there really a point to daylight savings time anymore?  Okay, I know it has something to do with energy consumption and providing more daylight so people use less energy to light their homes.  Seriously?  If it's such a great idea, why aren't we doing it year-round?  I remember doing that once as a kid and walking to school in the dark.

Twice a year, I go through nearly a week of feeling jet-lagged as I try to shift my rhythms.  In addition to feeling a bit disoriented throughout the day, my eating habits change and I just feel yucky all day.  At the very least, no one should have to go to school or work on the day after the time change.

Man, am I whiny today. 

the marriage ref?

Please--a show with celebrities making marriage decisions for others?  And they're deciding whether a couple should get a stripper pole in the bedroom?  I'm wondering--if a couple agrees to be on the show, are they obligated to follow the celebrity vote?  

I really don't get most of the reality shows.  I only like the ones where there is time for people to develop relationships and have a chance to grow and develop in some way.