Whispering tissue
Wonderment strewn on their face
Echoes of childhood
Category: parenting
I woke up today and realized that I will never be a 40 under 40.
By 25 I was knee deep in diapers, raising three kids under three.
My ex, by the way, was living with another woman, having left me to lead the fun and fancy free life of a 20 something male who realized at an early age that he can make his own way off the emotional and physical labor of women he’s discarded.
By 30 I was going back to school to finish an undergraduate degree I’d started at 18.
By 35 I was in grad school where the rest of my cohorts were a decade younger, and none with children. That’s where I was told I couldn’t use commas.
By 37 I had two degrees. I also obtained my first job that broke the poverty barrier.
Now, I’m 41 and I’ve just begun to create a retirement account. My kids are grown or almost grown.
I wanted to be a writer, an author of books that will remain after my death, but increasingly time slips away from me.
I wanted to be a professor, a reader, an academic whose job was to think. But my ex stole that from me.
I have achieved so much. I understand this.
But I will never be a 40 under 40. And that is a hard pill for the dreamer within me to swallow.
Although.
I can’t swallow pills anyway (true story).
So I guess there’s still time for dreaming.
What will the memories of this past year be? Perhaps, one of the hardest years of my life.
Will they be filled with the rose colored tinge of nostalgia, like the pain of childbirth that time and contentment erase?
Or will they darken the day, coming in as sharp, stinging nettles in the surprise of their remembrance?
There are times in life
When the world spins around you
And though you move slow
Time is relentless
And, despite your best efforts to catch it
Time falls through your fingers like sand
It’s been a minute
Established routines were lost
To time’s onslaught
Yet, the spinning slowed
And suddenly Autumn was in the air.
As summer dwindles,
I can think clearly
A breeze has begun.
Listless still, but cold and crisp
It harbors the fall.
and the end of an old cycle
But, underneath the wind
A budding laugh grows
And she awakens
Like a new spring
Looking through photos
Brings a honeyed nostalgia
That’s soured with fear
What if I remember
Only the picture? And not
The sweetness of the moment?
Trying to make sense
Of a life in upheaval
Is like trying to
Hear a conversation between ants
You can see them, sure
See that they’re conversating
Their little antennae move
And they hustle forward with purpose
But what they said?
It’s non-sensical.
Problems are like this too
They appear, but don’t make sense
And decisions must be rushed toward
with all the purpose
of an ant on a mission
but none of the understanding.
It’s never enough
You can work – or stay at home
You can have game nights
And family dinner
You can take an interest
Or give them some space
But no matter what
To a teenager…
It’s never enough
How do I begin?
You had to grow up too soon.
You were the strong one
The oldest kiddo
With the most responsibility
As you celebrate this day
I think that the hardest times
Are finally behind
Sometimes I feel like
I’m a placeholder for others
Because of me
Their world stays in tact.
They’re allowed to grow, and be
While I remain fixed.
Always straggling behind
In the shadow of their success.
Hipstory 