Blankets

I was thinking about blankets the other day.  I started quilting about 6 years ago.  The obsession comes in fits and spurts.  I'll get out my sewing machine, which my mother bought for my 17 year old daughter when she was about 9 years old, and I'll convert the entire kitchen, den, and dining room into my sewing room.  My family rolls their eyes at me and tolerates the yards of fabric draped over every chair and table and looks beyond the tumbleweeds of thread that collect in the corners of the room. Blanket season usually happens for about 2-4 months every year around Christmas time.  No one knows who will become a lucky recipient of one of these treasures.  I usually get a bemused, "Thank you?" as a response to my gesture of love.  And that is exactly what it is.  It's like when a cat brings you a dead bird.  Or you go on vacation and your dog leaves a turd in your closet when you return home.  It's my offering to you and if you get one, you'd better damn-well appreciate it.  I have a running list in my head of those who are blanket-worthy.  Before I lay my head down in the hard, cold ground or my ashes are scattered to the wind, I have a few dozen more people for whom I need to cut and piece and stitch together a blanket of love. 

The reason I was thinking about blankets is I have been spending more of my waking hours online (said no one ever during the global pandemic).  The weekly update that Apple sends me to tell me how many hours/day I've clocked on my phone is obscene.  If my 17, 19 and 20 year-old children could go back to their middle-school selves they'd have a fine time screaming, "HYPOCRITE!" and casting stones at me.  I have joined more Facebook groups than a high-school senior applying to college has activities listed on their resume.  There isn't an obscure Facebook group that I'm not a fan of, and that includes quite a few groups that are dedicated to quilting and sewing.  I could never actually post anything on any of these quilting and sewing pages because all the other members are legitimate in their craft.  My stuff usually comes out looking like those Pinterest fails.  The other day one lady posted a picture of a lovely blanket she was creating for her grandchildren and her evil daughter-in-law told her that none of the 12 grandkids would appreciate the gesture.  They'd rather have some plastic crap.  She wanted to know if she should just quit or forge ahead.  I was horrified.  At 3 am in the morning, I wanted to transport through the blue screen and find that insensitive wench and tell her she wasn't worthy of her mother-in-law's time or talents.  Of course every single person on the thread told the grandmother she absolutely must make those blankets for all 12 of her grandchildren, DIL be damned!  Her grand babies would absolutely treasure her gifts, if not now, then in decades to come.  I still shake in indignity at the thought of rejecting such a self-sacrificial gift. 

But it got me to thinking about blankets and blanket making in-general.  You can go to Marshall's or Ross and buy a throw for about $9.  If you and all your friends went to every TJ Maxx-esque store in your city and cleared the shelves of blankets and throws and distributed them throughout your city, you'd go back to the store the next day and there would be just as many.  They are mass produced and multiply, seemingly, like tribbles.  You can also dish out $50-$100 for some nice, soft name brand blanket.  My point being, there is no shortage of blankets; Tuesday Morning, Wal-Mart, Costco, Krogers, Neiman Marcus; you can get them anywhere.  We have baskets of them in our TV room and about 5 or 6 are usually strewn about our Ikea Kivik sectional (the poor man's answer to Restoration Hardware's Cloud).  But I can look at every blanket and tell you where it came from more or less and can rank each one in terms of sentimentality.  When we are all home, we each have our favorite blanket and we fight over them.  When we aren't home, the dogs will get on the sofas and leave behind the evidence of their badness with their fur and stink all over the blankets.  Sometimes we'll catch our miniature schnauzer trying to make a nest in one that has fallen on the floor.  Blankets tell stories.  You just have to listen.

Think about it; the moment you exit your mother's womb, what are you wrapped in?  A blanket.  It's security.  It's love.  It's warmth.  It's family.  It's history.  Admittedly, I am a hoarder.  I hoard photos, my kids' art from pre-school, memories.  And I hoard blankets.  My grandmothers made me crocheted blankets.  My mom's mom, Abuelita Fina, made each of her 20 grandchildren a crocheted blanket and no one got to pick their yarn or their pattern, but we ALL eagerly anticipated the arrival of our blanket.  I think she used the yarn leftover at the bottom of her closet and randomly and blindly selected your colors, but it didn't matter.  It was the blanket Fina, with her gnarled, arthritic hands, created just for you.  Mine is salmon-pink and brown, kind of Baskin-Robbins colored and absolutely putrid in color but it's one of my most valued possessions.  Some of the squares are fraying and despite the fact that I could NEVER match the colors, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to patch it together.  But, I get out that blanket (which has been stored away in the ottoman of the Kivik for safe-keeping) and years of summers at her house playing Loteria and watching Trapper John MD come flooding back into my mind.  Some of my cousins got colors that I envied, beautiful blues or reds or purples but I would have never, ever, ever even contemplated trading or grousing.  My brown and salmon blanket is mine and only mine and no one will ever have one exactly like it.  It's like a snowflake.  

My dad's mother, Grandma Dorothy, made each of my children, her great-grandchildren, a crocheted baby blanket.  If you don't think I don't get choked up thinking about my, at the time, 80 something year-old grandmother, e-mailing me to ask me about colors for the blankets then you have no soul.  She'd have turned 103 this year if she were still alive and if there is one thing that Dot loved, it was how to be technologically savvy.  She'd have been texting and sending emojis and memes with the best of them.  Those blankets she crocheted for her 3 great-grandchildren were love in action.  And they are in a box of baby treasures for each of my kids. Gramma Dorothy also taught me how to knit, not well, but it wasn't for her lack of trying.  It was 1996 and my husband and I had just returned home from our honeymoon in Cozumel and while were were scuba-diving she was having by-pass surgery, unbeknownst to me.  She had come to our wedding and apparently was having crushing sub-sternal chest pressure while on the dance floor but didn't want to bother anyone.  When she returned home after the wedding, she walked over to the fire station to tell them her symptoms and ended up with 3 by-passed arteries around her heart.  I flew up to take care of her my second week into marriage.  Part of her cardiac rehab was walking slowly through Wal-Mart, using a shopping cart to brace herself, to pick out yarn and knitting needles.  We'd sit on her sofa (she called it a davenport) and she'd patiently teach me how to knit and purl.  I've never gotten beyond a scarf (and one with all sorts of dropped stitches and imperfections at that) but when I was going through chemotherapy, I'd get out my balls of yarn (GD taught me to unravel the skeins and form them into balls) and knit my anxiety into a scarf and have a moment of gratitude for Gramma Dorothy and that week in October 1996.  

My Aunt Mary Beth also knits and sews and crochets.  I keep promising myself that someday I'll take a week and sit at her feet and take a master class from her.  She made 100s, if not 1000s, of blankets and I've been fortunate to have been gifted not only blankets, but knitted Christmas stocking for my kids and cross-stitched wall-hangings and I treasure it all.  Because a blanket or any hand-made gift is a gift from the heart.  It says, "I have spent sustained time designing and creating and crafting this gift just for you. Countless hours have been spent with the sole purpose of giving you this blanket.  Each stitch, each square, each color has significance and meaning and it has been a f$cking labor of love.  This is my heart, to you, in cloth. I might not be able to buy you a Tesla, but I can give you this shitty blanket.  Now love me!"  And it doesn't have to be a blanket.  Mine and Lee's dads are both carpenters.  Our house is filled with furniture and jewelry boxes and wood-turned bowls and ornaments and chairs made by them.  I can't even.  I can't even finish my sentence.  LOVE, people.  LOVE.  So, @Kelly with the Beginning Quilters Group (names and relationships changed for anonymity), you GO!  Don't you listen to the haters and the doubters and the naysayers.  You quilt because you love.  Your heart is big and you spread your joy one square at a time.  

Back in the High Life Again

I just dropped middle kid off at school.  Why do we, as Americans, take such pride in sending our kids off to far-away, over-priced liberal arts colleges?  I was talking to my sister about this.  Why don't we, as she suggested, send them to community college and then to the local state school?  It would be easier on the wallet and the heart.  For the price of 2 liberal arts educations we could have gone on many fancy-ass vacations and/or purchased and maintained a second home in a tropical paradise.  The third one hasn't decided where she's going to go to college.  We can only hope that she aims low.  

I had fun in Nashville with boy one and boy two.  The time between graduating from my expensive liberal arts college and sending my boys off to theirs doesn't seem like 30+ years.  If I subtract that number from my entry into college, that equals 1956.  That's crazy.  The time between 1956 to 1986 was warp years longer than the time between 1990 and 2020.  There is not equality in the differences.  In the south, we'd often say "same difference".  This is most definitely NOT the same difference.  That means that when my kids and their friends look at me and my husband they see old, irrelevant people.  I went out to bars and listened to live music and played pool and did jello shots and had questionable judgement.  I'm still that person, right?

I took son one and his friends to dinner on Thursday night.  They were the nicest group of boys (men? at ages 19-20 some might call them men) I'd ever met.  One of them asked, un-ironically, who was going to say the blessing before we ate.  They all thanked me and asked me thoughtful questions and asked how my trip, to drop son two at his school, went.  They were talking about the stock market and summer internships and fluency in second languages.  They reminisced about where they were and what they were doing when they received the first e-mail telling them their semester had been temporarily suspended and the subsequent one evicting them from their dorms for remote, virtual learning for the remainder of the semester.  Sitting in that mediterranean restaurant, I realized these kids are better than we were.  

Son two seemed melancholy prior to depositing him in his mountain retreat for the next 3+ months.  He spent 3 months away at school then 3 months back at home with his friends from high school.  As all first year college students do, he was having some buyers remorse:  "Maybe I've made the wrong decision?  Maybe I should be with all my high school friends in the college town 2 hours from home"  Secretly, my heart leapt with glee, thinking to myself, "Absolutely you should transfer straight away! As a matter-of-fact, you should never leave home at all."  Knowing this might have been the response he and I both wanted to hear, but also recognizing the irresponsibility of this statement, I did the right thing.  I told him everyone feels this way at first and he will find his people at school and his friends from home will remain his friends and get closer over time.  Then we went and spent about $500 at Walmart, Target, GameStop and Piggly Wiggly on crap for his dorm and by the time I left him, he didn't look back and he was content to be rid of me.  

We spend the first half of our life anticipating the next phase and the second half of our life reminiscing about the times we were so eager to pass by.  How could this be the same boy, boy two, who screamed every time we placed him in his car seat and begged for McDonald's just for the Happy Meal toy and required so many trips to the emergency room?  How can boy one, the one so adjusted in his second year away from home, be the same kid who cried if I was 2 minutes late to pick him up at the end of the day and who refused to get out the car in middle school until I told him I was going to call the truancy officer and who floated in the pool with me one summer night when he was 13 years old and lamented about his perceived lack of friends.  

After dropping boy 2 and visiting with boy 1, I flew to my ancestral home to visit my dad and my step-mom.  I hadn't been there in 4 and a half years.  I hadn't seen my dad and his wife in almost 2 years (cursed pandemic).  Dad picked me up at the airport and with a few wrong turns averted ("I don't make it too far from home any more and my reflexes aren't what they used to be."), we made it back to their house.  Forty-eight hours really isn't enough time.  Mostly we sat together and chatted and he showed me You-Tube videos of animals and I looked up locations he and my step-mom could get their vaccine and showed them how to put Amazon Prime on their Roku stick.  I used to marvel at how neat and orderly their house always seemed to be but there was never a bunch of kids around to f*ck it up.  I went down to his wood shop with him and looked at the wood turnings he's been working on and I cherished the orderliness of their lives. Every tool had it's own home on a peg board or in a series of PVC pipes he had constructed for his wood-turning instruments.  All the bins were labeled.  They have a rhythm and they always have and it's taken me to the age of 52 to truly appreciate it and recognize the beauty.   I demonstrated to my father the proper technique in binge-watching a series on Netflix (no, you can't just watch 2 episodes) and we played songs on his speaker and cavorted with my canine brothers.  I see my mom several times a week but this trip forced me to reevaluate the lack of frequency with which I attend to my most important relationships.  Not a minute could be spared.  My sister came over for dinner the second night and we caught up as much as we could in an hour and a half and we compared notes on raising teenagers (young adults?).  

I've always been sentimental.  I came out of the womb that way.  The cancer was a gift that reinforced certain choices.  I'm glad that my hand was forced to reevaluate and reprioritize.  Just like we didn't, our kids won't stick around forever, fancy liberal arts school or not.  I can only hope they'll want to come back and spend time with Lee and me.  It's been time well spent, this life.  I hadn't wanted to get reflective, but, as I said, that is who I am.  And if my kids don't want to come visit me, I can always get a dog, binge watch Netflix (if I can figure out how to use the remote control), finally get out my label maker and organize my life, and watch dog YouTube videos.  

Adventures in Eating with Ita

 

My mom (affectionately referred to as "Ita" by her grandchildren.  Ita is short for Abuelita) and I have commenced to sampling different eateries during the pandemic.  It started about a month ago when one of my daughter's friends asked me to take her for birrias tacos.  I had never seen nor heard of these delicacies.  We started our search in the north part of Houston off Airline Dr. where the Farmer's Market used to be.  Sadly, it's been razed in the name of gentrification.  Our first stop was Teotihuacan Mexican Cafe (http://www.teomexicancafe.com).  They had plenty of outdoor seating to maintain social distancing guidelines, the wait staff all wore face masks, and there were plenty of hand-sanitizing stations.  Once we sat down inside and perused the menu my mother chose chicken flautas and I ordered the enchiladas rojas thinking that these might be the closest to birrias tacos.  My mom said the flautas were the best she'd had since her childhood which is a pretty strong endorsement coming from a girl from Laredo, TX whose father used to take her across the border to a place called La Única. After this we went to buy my 17 year-old daughter a piñata at Nopalitos Reyes and then headed for raspas at Tampico Refresqueria (https://m.facebook.com/pages/Tampico-Refresqueria/108145762561109) where she ordered a leche rapsa con crema and I ordered a coco blanco raspa.  Though we didn't find the elusive birrias tacos it was a successful day in terms of deliciousness and my mom and I had fun on our adventure.  My mom has always been one for adventures.  Despite her meager income as she was raising me and my brother, she always tried to make sure we had fun.  We'd drive up to the North Georgia mountains, save our pennies to go the water park, or drive to Texas or Virginia to spend time with our cousins.  I knew she'd be the perfect sidekick for any nefarious activities I might have planned.  She's always had a naughty streak even in her more devout days.  And at age 73 and 52, I decided that there is no time like the present to make some memories.  

Ita enjoying her chicken flautas. 10/10 per her vote.  

Don't let her face fool you.  These flautas are the real deal!

Chicken flautas (photographer needs help) with crispy, 

fried tortillas de harina and shredded chicken inside. 

Enchiladas rojas.  I'm not a huge enchiladas fan, 

but these were solid and the refried beans 

were full of manteca deliciousness!

Llama piñata; the ultimate winner

for my daughter's 17th birthday.

Donkey piñata, a close second.

Two days later we continued our search for birrias tacos.  These tacos are basic Mexican street tacos made with goat stew and dipped into a glorious red sauce (think a taco version of the French dip).  If goat is not your jam (I'm not a fan of cabrito) then you can substitute beef or your favorite meat and normally there is some Mexican cheesy goodness and grilled onions inside the mini corn tortilla and a side of fresh cilantro, radishes, and maybe cabbage. There are plenty of websites that explain the origin and give recipes.  This is a new fan favorite and definitely not Tex-Mex and they are touted to be the perfect hangover food.  The waitress at Teotihuacan had told us that we wouldn't find these tacos at their establishment, but did know a lady in her apartment complex that made them.  If it wasn't the time of Covid, I'd have likely asked for the address but since that isn't the case, my mom and I went to the internet to google "birrias tacos near me".  The first place we found was on Hillcroft behind a pawn shop in a dark alley next to a used tire store and an even shadier dentist.  When I had called the establishment, the gentleman assured me they were the best birrias tacos in Houston and he'd be waiting for me.  Ita normally isn't squeamish.  This is the lady who served us cesos (cow brains) when I was a first-grader in Wathena, Kansas and wouldn't tell me and my dad what we were eating until we had swallowed the last bite.  But when we drove up to the "best birrias in Houston", even my mom wouldn't get out of the car.  Coronavirus didn't scare her as much as the prospect of fulminant hepatic failure from hepatitis A.  I cajoled her out of the car and into the tiny eatery.  I had almost convinced her to try one taco from the place.  They were the best tacos in Houston after all.  But, the deal breaker for me was the fact that they only served goat.  Just goat.  All day long.  Goat.  That particular Saturday was goat day.  The Saturday before had been beef day.  Saved by the lack of variety in their hooved animal meats, we ventured onward.  

Less than a mile away was another establishment, Tacos El Jaibo (http://www.tacoseljaibotx.com).  Ita was slightly reluctant because the name of their restaurant translates into The Crab Tacos and I have an allergy to shellfish.  When the waitress convinced her that we could get something other than crabs, shrimp, or oysters we decided to stay and that one decision has revolutionized our lives.  One bite into our quesabirrias and our palates would never be the same.  Any other taco is peasantry compared to these tiny, yet mighty meaty-cheesy wonders.  While the dipping sauce is made from goat stew, the flavor is salty and tangy and rich and there is hardly a hint of gaminess.  If someone handed you a straw, you'd suck it down in one sip.  My mom, typically, ordered every kind of meat other than beef; mollejas (beef pancreas, which, admittedly are crunchy and tasty), borrega (lamb), cabrito (goat) and I stuck to res (beef).  We also ordered 2 cups of posole (stew made with pork and hominy) and a side of freshly made guacamole and chips.  As much as we wanted to, we couldn't finish our food.  The fact that there are dollar tacos on Wednesdays and their masking, social distancing, and hand-sanitizing practices makes this place a 10/10!  Fat and happy, we waddled home.  

Tacos El Jaibo on Bellaire Blvd

Dollar tacos!  What's not to love? 

Fresh guacamole and home made chips

Posole

Birrias tacos

They are surprisingly filling!

Last Wednesday we journeyed down 225 to Pasadena and, folks, this was a trip worth taking!  The waitress at the first restaurant (Teotihuacan) had told us that birria tacos were from a city in Mexico called San Luis Potosi.  I don't think this is accurate but when we searched for tacos San Luis Potosi style, this is what we found: Taqueria y Neveria San Luis (https://taqueria-sanluis.com).  This is a tiny little establishment that is has plexiglass-separated booths and well spaced out tables w/ ample bottles of hand sanitizer and a strict mask-wearing policy.  Of course we sampled their birria tacos as well as there sopes. The borracho beans had tiny pieces of hot-dogs floating in them and it reminded my of the juevos con weenies my Abuelita used to make me in the summer when I'd stay with her in Laredo.  The cole slaw was revolutionary; freshly shredded cabbage, chopped cilantro, diced tomatoes, and lime juice.  I could have eaten a plate full of just this and my own attempt to replicate it was modest at best.  This place is Mexican Baskin-Robbins with at least 31 flavors and a rainbow of different paletas and ice cream made on the spot.  If nothing else, the paletas and ice cream are worth the drive.  After our meal we each ordered a paleta, Ita a fresa y crema and mine was a fresa, kiwi y durazno con crema.  We were good and only took a couple of bites just to sample.  We're gonna have to go back with a freezer full of dry ice to haul back several dozen paletas.  

Tacos birrias

Sopes

So many flavors and so little time

Even more flavors...

Lots of wall art

The booths separated by plexiglass 

Ice cream counter

Wearing our masks

Dine or to-go options

Beanie weenies

Artful and delicious

All in all the food was great but the company was even better.  The pandemic has made all of our circles smaller and, for me, it's been a good thing.  

Little Silos Everywhere

Little Silos Everywhere

written November 2019

Sometimes we sock ourselves in - into our silos.  I'm doing it right now.  Like Jesus in the desert.  Siloing is not recreational.  It's not a vacation or an escape from reality.  It's hard, ugly work.  What's that show that guy does about life's dirtiest jobs?  This is a dirty job because you have to stare face-to-face with your ugliest bits, persistently, for a really long time.  When you stare at something for that long and that up-close, things get distorted. My flaws take disproportionate priority.  And I chip away at them and then I get the sandpaper out and try to smooth out the edges.  I've never had a facial peel, but afterwards, before you get that youthful glow and skin as fresh as a baby's bottom, your face looks like you just swam in a pool of agent orange.  My soul feels like it's getting a facial peel.  Good stuff.  

Once upon a time, a parent of mine commented that it must be very hard to strive for perfection and to fall short.  At the time, it felt like a pot-shot.  "Whoa!", I thought.  "From whence does this critical appraisal spring?" But he was spot-on.  Spring, sprang, sprung.  That serpent liked to have sprang up and struck me.  So I sprung back, recoiled (if you will), and I've been wrastling that wirey beast for the longest.  It ain't no fun.  He come up (the serpent that is) and promised me he'd give me a life of luxury if I just threw in the towel.  He tol' me that I just needed to worry about myself and my young ones could take care of themselves.  Besides, they were spoilt and ungrateful anyhow.  That's what he (that serpent) tol' me.  I liked what he was saying because it was sugary sweet and it felt good down in my soul.  I could lick my wounds and he promised he'd be my best friend.  

He's a big fat liar and I know it.  He ain't getting me that easy.  He's tried but I'm gonna eat me some snake stew.  Pitiful.  You cannot let your young 'uns run you over. They will try and try and for a while but they got their brains hijacked and mis-wired and mis-firing.  So you gotta kick that serpent to the curb and put the heel of your boot down on him nice and firm and for a really long time.  When he stops twitching, then you can make your snake stew.  Hang that skin on the wall.  

My daughter is everything yours is not.  She's street smart and mouthy (in a good way and a bad way), wicked and funny, sharp as a tack, fearless, vulnerable, frustrating, beautiful, ugly, easy, difficult, loving, full of hate, loyal, treacherous and mine, all mine.  She's been in her silo and I've been in mine.  They aren't conjoined but there is Habitrail, clear, acrylic tubing connecting us.  Sometimes we carry our feces back and forth in that plastic tubing.  It can get stinky and smelly in there.  Sometimes we'll hunker down in the shavings next to each other.  We've bitten each other before.  She sends me back to my silo and I send her back to hers.  I haven't given her the keys to the Barbie convertible but she's been out in her hamster wheel.  You might have seen her bumping into shit.  I love that jimmy-leg walking little girl.  I love her laughter.  I love her interpretive dance.  I love her mind.  It's a good, solid mind and it's full of insight and humor and forgiveness and goodness.  It's still figuring things out (where can this hamster wheel take me?).  She's battling her own serpent and mourning the loss of her own imperfections.  Sister, you'll do that all damn day, every damn day for the rest of your life.  Some days you'll forget for a little while and cut loose but then you'll realize the soundtrack is on repeat.  Trust me.  Some days you give yourself more grace.  Some days you give others more grace.  Mercy.  Trust me.  My daughter is just like your daughter.  

Last night I had two semi-recurring dreams.  In one, I'm driving uncontrollably down a road.  I can't stop and I don't know where I'm going but it's fast and reckless and there is no end.  In the other, I'm up against forces of evil cloaked in goodness.  She's with me in both dreams and I have to protect her but in the first, I'm helpless and in the second, I'm ineffective.  But when I wake up, I understand; they were just dreams.  I do step on the brakes.  I am present to help her interpret intentions.  And when we have to silo, we silo.  So she can have the freedom to be her; safely, with the guard rails up, without judgment and in the protection of her silo.  She's not Rapunzel.  It's not captivity.  There won't be a Rumspringa.  She's got this.  And I've got her.  Glorious, wonderful, beautiful, hilarious, wickedly smart, amazingly her.  

Dayum, I love that girl.  What a treasure.  I frustrating, marvelous, magnificent treasure.  

What's the Price for Flight?

Bear with me.  Today's rambling may be a rehash of my last post.

August 19, 2019 is my national day of mourning.  Or self pity.  Or sadness.  Or grief.  Or whatever you want to call it.  It seems extreme to put this on the same level as true tragedy.  It isn't.  I know that.  But right now, my heart stings and my soul is heavy and it's a loss and this is just an exercise so I'm going to call it like I feel it at this very moment.  I know all the trite and realistic responses but I need a moment to mourn, marinade in my feelings, sort them out and then move-on.  

I love the Facebook posts of everyone dropping their kids off at college.  I really do.  We're a social experiment that has never been conducted.  We've raised our kids, collectively, on-line.  I've had my account for 11 years.  I've witnessed everyone's kids' annual first day of school, learner's permit, driver's license permit, prom, annual vacation, broken bone, sports team triumphs, loss of pets and loss of loved ones.  We display every proud moment for the world to see and I love it.  I may not always comment, but I feel joy when you feel joy and sorrow when you feel sorrow.  I note every passing birthday and anniversary.  I could live every moment on-line and skip reality and some days and weeks my family and iPhone tracker tell me that I do.  

We dropped Evan off at college this weekend.  I held it together until today.  I had twinges of sadness over the past couple of weeks, on the drive up and over the weekend.  But pulling into the driveway last night, and knowing there would only be 2/3 of my litter sleeping under my roof and in their beds, things felt incomplete.  And it's all good.  He's happy.  He's where he's supposed to be.  He hugged us all and acknowledged the parts of him that realized this is a shift.  It's all good.  The alternative is far worse.  I know that and I'm so incredibly grateful.

But, today, I am sad.  I'm tearful and I'm in my pajamas lying in my bed and I don't feel like doing anything other than soaking in my sadness, letting it permeate every pore and every ounce of my tissue.  My baby boy left home.  His room is empty and he's not coming back tonight or tomorrow night or next week.  His sister is going to move into his room and his bed and his belongings will be relegated to her small corner of the house.  I'll never go back there and hear the blare and the beat of rap music coming out of his bathroom, see his shoes lined up along his wall, the clothes lying on the bed and the backpack on his desk chair.  I won't check my phone at night to see if he's almost home and wait to fall asleep after I've heard him walk through the door.  I won't hear him foraging for snacks late at night or making his breakfast early in the morning.  I can't ask him to take his sister to a friend's house or take out the trash or put his dishes in the dishwasher.  I can't get annoyed when the first thing he does when he walks through the door is ask me to order him new contacts or put money on his card to pay for the X, Y or Z he just bought.  And I know I'm fortunate.  I know the alternatives are far worse.  I know 12 years ago I worried I'd not live long enough to see this day.  I know my cousin missed this with her daughter, my goddaughter.  I know there are families that lost their children, can't afford to go to college, kids won't get off the couch, are riddled with depression/anxiety/substance abuse, etc.  But, today, I feel sad.  I feel loss.  I mourn and, with the rain that's coming down outside, I'm going to allow myself to feel this way.

Because, I think what's behind it is self-doubt.  And I'm not looking for validation.  But with every transition you ask yourself, "did I do a good enough job?".  Did I appreciate him enough?  Did I thank him enough?  Did I tell him I was proud of him enough (truly proud, of him, his character, his person, who he is-not what he can do).  Did I equip him enough?  Was all of it enough?  Could I have tweaked my performance here or there and done a better job?  I don't have the blank canvas anymore.  He'll be home for breaks and he'll call and I know that parenting isn't over, but for these past 18+ years, did I fail him in any way?  I'm sure I did, but is the damage severe?  Will he recover?  Will he forgive me?  Will he have grace for mine and his father's failings?  Does he appreciate we did the best we could with what we had or will he uncover resentments when he is out of our house?  Will he look back and realize he's angry with what we've done to him?  Will he write a scathing memoir uncovering all of our years of abuse and neglect?  Will he forget us?  Will he never want to come home?  Will he stay in touch with his brother and sister and grandmother and cousins?  Was it enough?  As I tearfully lamented to my husband this morning, "I can't possibly be expected to do anything today or the rest of the week because ultimately, it's all about me!".  It's about him.  But, really, it's about me.  God, did I f*ck it up?  Did I pray enough?  I can never pray as well or as often or as good as my mom did for me and my brother.  I don't have that kind of professional Jesus-ness that she possesses and maybe I wasn't as good of a parent because I didn't get up and do my quiet time at 4 am every morning like she did.  Did I thank Jesus enough for him?  

That's what I wish I could see on all these Facebook posts.  I wish there was an agony-o-meter that you could scan over every photo and know that you aren't alone; that everyone else in their newly decorated dorm room felt the same feels.  Behind the opulence of it all, that really you're a self-doubting mess.  That, sure you're aware of all the hits, but right at this very moment, you're more acutely aware of all the misses.  The photos represent the resiliency and what we want to project.  We know our kids will thrive in spite of our failings and that is what we are putting out there.  So maybe I do want validation.  Maybe I do want to know that everyone else is rating themselves on the lower half of the Likert scale right now.  

So today my family has to suffer me.  Even the dogs have to suffer me.  They were allowed to hop on the bed with me but as soon as they heard the bell chime and the door open, that was their cue to get the hell off the bed.  "Our human is off the chain right now," they were thinking.  My husband brought me my computer, the charger, a box of Kleenex, a bottle of coconut water and offered to heat up my coffee.  He was even the one to get the dogs on the bed with me and that is the number one offense in his book.  He will deal with his feelings in his own quiet and dignified way that involves burying himself in yard work, the bills and the gym.  My other 2 kids will and have been coping in their own ways but that is their own story to tell.  They love their brother, their captain who they both adore and who also annoys them in only the ways an older brother can.  So, I don't really get a full day to sulk and bask in my own schizophrenia of emotions.  I have to wash my face, brush my teeth, put on my clothes and be a wife, parent and an adult.  I have to give thanks, give myself some grace and carry on.  I have two other kids I still have time to screw up with or modify my parenting and do it better.  

EJP

I'm not so good at good-byes.  The oldest one is off to college in less than 3 months so it seems like a fine time to question any parenting decision we've ever made and wonder if we should have done everything completely differently.  I don't know who decided that our kids need to leave the nest to go to college or the military or wherever they decide to go.  There should not be an 18 year expiration date.  He's ready.  I'm not ready.  The time went by too quickly.  I knew it would, but I didn't expect that I'd be here, at this place, so soon.  It's like when you go to an amusement park and you wait all that time in line for the roller coaster and you finally hop on and then it's over.  

I have different ways of coping with good-byes and I wouldn't recommend any of them.  A lot of times I've walled off my heart to keep from getting hurt.  It's an immature defense mechanism, but it does prevent a lot of the sting.  I've made myself immensely busy at work this year.  On the surface, the choices seemed rational and well timed but I wonder if it wasn't some lame effort to keep from dealing with the reality of his impending departure.  When you're about to bring your babies home for the first time, you nest; get the house ready for their arrival by painting and buying furniture and preparing your home.  When you prepare for them to launch, you distract yourself with seemingly endless and meaningless tasks (all the while you are doing your best to convince yourself of the importance of said tasks).  

The irony is I'm quite good at living in the moment.  That's breast cancer's gift to me.  I have a fairly healthy relationship with what matters and what doesn't.  But there is absolutely no preparing your heart for this next phase of life.  I've watched friends go through it and I've seen them expose the fleshy bits of their heart but I couldn't quite place myself in their shoes.  I knew my time would come soon enough.  

My sister-in-law says that there is no time for sadness because the alternative, not launching them, is far worse.  I am grateful.  So grateful.  Twelve years ago, I didn't know if I'd be alive to see this day.  He's worked so hard.  He's earned every achievement to his name and I know that he's not gone forever but there will be no more first day of school photos on the front lawn with his brother and sister.  No more knowing he's tucked into his bed in his bedroom under our roof every night.  No more of him coming through the front door at the end of the day after practice or work.  No more scratching for food in the pantry, standing like a sentry in the doorway.  No more sitting at the kitchen counter doing his homework every night.  No more barreling through the door and asking what's for dinner.  

I've enjoyed every last minute of his brief time at home with us.  For him, it's a short part of his life, but for us, it's been everything.  If I could rewind and relive every single moment, I would; every sick day on the couch, every water polo game, every afternoon pick-up, every agonizing day of middle school.  There is nothing I'd leave out.  I love you Evan James Poythress with all of my heart and I wish you all the love and happiness that you have brought to your father and me.  You will do great things and you are well on your way to becoming a man.  You've brought us so much joy and I'm so grateful for the time we've had together under one roof.  I love you more than words can describe.  

Middle Kid

I just spent the past week with my middle kid on our "college tour" trip.  We didn't actually look at any colleges but that is a minor detail.  I did the same trip with my oldest kid before his junior year.  Middle kid is towards the end of his junior year.  I have one kid remaining and I'll likely do the same thing with her.  It's a good time to do it, their junior year.  Even though we didn't actually visit any colleges, the sentiment was there.  I suppose he imagined himself living in either New York or Boston and I don't think he could actually envision himself living in either city.  But, I could be wrong.  

Comparing the two kids, the older and the middle, is like comparing camels and emus.  They are completely different beasts.  I don't know when and if I'll ever get the opportunity for it just to be the 2 of us again.  This curly headed little beast has wormed his way into my heart and I'll miss the luxury of having time just with him.  He's an affectionate one, they all are, but he seems to be pure affection.  Sitting on the hotel sofa and watching movies on pay per view is enough for him, but only because he gets to be with his mama.  There wasn't a lot I had to do to make him content.  

That's the thing, when you spend individual time with a kid, you get their full personality.  It's not encumbered by siblings or expectations you might have of them at home.  They are free to be who they are and to be witness to that is something indescribable.  This man cub of mine who used to be my tiny baby is full of thoughts and humor and love and ideas and respect and consideration.  My heart swells like a tick so stuffed with his blood meal that it's about to pop.  

Everyone talks about the middle kid...like they are overlooked or forgotten or passed over.  There is so much beauty in the middle; a simplicity and honesty that likely exists because of their birth order.  I don't know how I could be so lucky to end up with a kid like him.  I didn't earn it and I don't deserve it, but I'll take him, every single minute I have left with him at home.  

Grateful beyond words.