10.30.14 At The Height Of All Things

At the height of all things, I had three bathrooms to clean. Now there is one.
     In those days, sixteen years ago, there was my husband and I , with our three kids, the oldest’s 18-year-old girlfriend, the 14 year old nephew, and for one crystalline month, the oldest's two best friends, another couple, who were homeless.

     I had found a rental, a huge colonial, with apartments on either side, and room enough for my enlarged brood.
     When my kids were younger, I taught them each to pick a room to clean, and then went around , getting them started. Pretty soon they were well-trained. With encouragement. 

     And then, we would all walk down to the little town library in North Amherst, and pick a video for them all to watch. That seemed good enough for them.
     Years passed, they got older, and their involvement with the world ,school and sports increased. The amount of stress involved with getting a 22 year-old to clean the stupid bathroom was phenomenal.
     I did what we often do. I succumbed.
     I far preferred to scrub the stupid toilets and surrounding areas and tubs and showers and floors and mirrors and fixtures and sinks, and empty waste baskets, and replace toilet papers, and wash towels and washcloths, than risk the ire while twisting arms.
     So funny to think back. Now, everyone has gone their separate ways. My kids all living within a mile of each other, some of them together, in another state. All of them pretty happy.
The couple that stayed with us long gone. The girlfriend gone. My nephew is off somewhere, I hope doing well.
     How we learn, as years pass, that there are seasons of life. All the different flavors of life you can have, by choice or circumstance.
     It took me a full two or three years of everyone being gone before I stopped shuddering every time I thought of all the soccer games and teacher conferences and concerns and challenges and all the homework struggles and sneaking out and all the other things. Despite knowing that it was over and done with, just thinking about it made both of us quake.
     We used to tell our kids that no one, but no one-was allowed to get pregnant. Until we had recovered -from them.
      But we have, and they can do what they will. It's one of life's finest blessings, to have offspring be happy enough.

     And now, like all precious and challenging experiences, there is the tender; the bittersweet, and then the gratitude.
     The seasons of life? Well, when you get a bit older, and if you had kids, if they're grown, and pretty okay, there is this reparation that occurs within you. The simplifying; paring down. So much delicious silence. Where you don't necessarily have it to rise to any occasion, even if an occasion happens with them.
     Not that stuff doesn't happen. But it's a really good reason why, if you have kids, you just do the very best you can.so that they end up as ok as possible.
     So when parenting lets up, they can still call you and go on about what they're trying to figure out. You can listen and empathize. And you can help them financially a little bit, if you can, here and there. And then you can just let them have their lives.

     Sometimes I think it’s the natural way of things : getting burnt out enough that you really can’t fret or try to get them to change or go fuss about in their lives. You simply sit in your own, loving them, and have your own tired hands, full.
      And if you have a partner? Why, you turn toward them. You look at them with surprise. You say "Why, there you are! ". Learning all over again who you each are, how you fit together, how to grow close all over again.