Wait For It
Image by darren webb. Some rights reserved.
When the kids were young, most weekend mornings, I schlepped them out the door early for donuts and a hike or a visit someplace. (Gerty likes to sleep in on weekend mornings.) As the kids grew up, there were games, piano lessons, and birthday parties. Barring a work crisis, I generally drove them here and there and enjoyed standing on the sidelines or drinking coffee until they needed another ride.
The kids are older now. They have wandered off, plan their own days, or enjoy joining Gerty in sleeping until noon. And, I haven't adjusted. I spend too many weekends rattling around waiting to play with children who aren't usually terribly interested in playing with me.
It's odd (and troubling) that it has taken me so long to realize what's going on.
Since I have caught on, I have noticed how many other people spend their time waiting for things that are rare, or at least a long way off. My father waits for his children to visit and for a sickness to carry him off. A friend waits for Sunday and Monday football. Gerty waits for me to retire so we can travel together. Another friend waits for the next big movie release.
Comments:
· http://ijar.chiggins.com It never escapes me how perfect and blissful this time is, even when cleaning up a spilled pint of syrup, even when they're quarreling. I have no idea what I'll do when they get their own worlds and only visit ours.
I suspect it'll be gratifying and rough.
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07/21/09 @ 14:53 I envy you. I try not to look back and say "I was happier then," but at least on the kid front -- which is huge -- I was. Happily cleaning up spilled syrup sums it up nicely.
What's trying right now, I think, is that we are between stages. Two of the kids should be mainly in "their own worlds," but only one of them has made the leap. And you are right . . . the successful leap is gratifying. But you are also right that the failure to leap (so far) is rough.
It's tough to treat - or maybe more precisely, to consistently treat - an adult who is living at home, sleeping in his old bed, not doing much constructive, as an adult. There's something like hydraulic pressure to fall into the old parent/kid patterns. And, the pressure is aggravated because parental-style nagging seems genuinely useful right now -- "Have you filled out that application yet?." And, then, though I'm embarrassed to admit it, there's the guilty suspicion that he is not launched because we screwed up raising him. I don't think that will prove true, but the suspicion is there.
Funny that I find it so trying -- it's only 7 weeks so far.
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07/24/09 @ 07:01 
