When does life begin?

When I was sixteen I remember thinking I couldn't wait for my life to begin.  Soon I would be in college, on my own, no rules, no oppressive family life to overcome.  Childhood gone and forgotten.  I could finally start MY life.


Then I was eighteen, and in college.  Soon, my life would begin.  I would finish classes and get my degree.  I would start a career and not have to worry about where my next meal would come from or how I would cover next semester's tuition.  I would be a grown up.  My life would finally begin.


Then I got pregnant and dropped out of college.  It was unplanned, as most things are, but at least then my life would begin.  I started to plan.  I was alone, though not for long or so I thought.  As fate often does, it had other plans for me and I lost the baby at sixteen weeks.  My life didn't begin.  


I wandered around the country, mostly following a man, for six years, selling roses and grooming jousting horses  at renaissance faires, waiting for my life to begin.  I had lovers.  I had drugs.  I had a romantic -albeit dirty- gypsy life.  I had fun.  What did I have to lose?  I was still waiting for my life to begin.  


I hit my mid-twenties, still waiting.  I watched my friends get married, have children, have careers, have lives, while I had crap jobs and piece of shit boyfriends who still lived with their parents.  I was running out of time.  Somewhere in my mind I heard this quiet ticking.  Not a biological clock, mind you.  I knew I wasn't ready for babies.  I still liked to party.  I still wanted to have fun and be young.  But in my mind, my life wouldn't begin until I had someone to share it with.


To this day, I wonder where that came from.  I was surrounded by young, brilliant, successful women who had careers and lives completely independent of any man.  They were not defined by their relationships.  I left home at a very young age because I knew I could BE one of those women, yet I found myself needing to tie myself to a man in order to feel like I could start my life.


At twenty-seven I moved back to a place I feared and loathed...home.  So my life could finally begin.  Surprise, it didn't.  I worked dead-end job after dead-end job, dating loser after loser, hoping maybe the next loser would be the one to bring me up out of my hole.  Maybe this loser would marry me and my life would finally begin.


At thirty I did meet someone and I got so extraordinarily lucky, I still have a hard time believing it.  He was not a loser.  He is a good guy.  A great guy.  We were married a year later.  Parents a year after that.  And you know what?  I am still sitting here waiting for my life to begin.


That last sentence sums it all up.  I am sitting here.  Waiting.  It has taken me thirty-eight years, countless hours of therapy, too many drugs to list, journals full of pitiful tears and the verge of divorce for me to finally realize that my life isn't just going to begin.  I have to MAKE IT BEGIN.  It sounds so simple, doesn't it?  I think it's about time I get off my ass and start my life, don't you?  


    

Teaching an Old Dog an Old Trick

Today my daughter tried to teach me how to play.  Play what?  Just play.  It seems I've forgotten, or I never learned, one of the two.  But whenever she asks me to play with her I go into a bit  of a panic and always seem to find something else to do.  Something more important, like check Facebook or pretend to clean the kitchen, or watch television.  Something always more important that her, at least that's how she sees it, and rightly so.  I was terrified.  But I did it.

I let her put make up on me.  I put on a party dress.  I put on high heels.  We danced around the kitchen and acted like children.  And you know what?  I had fun.  The house stayed standing and the only one who laughed at me was my daughter.  My daughter who is wise beyond her years.  She saw that I was struggling.  She knew I was so far out of my element that all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and hide.  She asked me why I couldn't play.  I told her it was because I didn't know how.

I tried as best as I could, without coloring her wonderful opinion of her grandparents, to explain to her that when I was a little girl I was never really allowed to play.  That there was always better things to do.  I should be cleaning or doing something productive.  There was no time for play.  So now, when it comes to having fun, my instant reaction is that there are better things to do.  But soon, my daughter won't want to play.  Soon she will want to do everything on her own.  Too soon, she won't need or want mommy around anymore.  I will have missed it.  So I better get over my issues and get down on my hands and knees and learn how to play if it kills me.  It probably won't.

Spring Broken

I'm sitting in a hotel room in North Carolina. My daughter and I are on spring break. Just she and I. Her and me. The kiddo and the mommy. All the time. No off button. No daddy. 100% quality time. I suck at this.

I'm a good mom, don't get me wrong. I can do the mommy thing. But when it's just the two of us and I am expected to entertain her the entire time, I start to lose my shit a little. I can't think of what to do. I want to curl up in fetal position and pray that she'll just watch TV for a little while, but NO...she wants to DO stuff. She wants to play. She wants to go places. But she's five. So the things she wants to do and the places she want she wants to go don't always jive with what I want to do.

I'm trying to be cool mommy. Go with the flow, super fun, think Lorelai Gilmore. But there's a reason we never saw 'Gilmore Girls: The Kindergarten Years' Because five year olds are damn hard to please. Even pleasant, cute, well-behaved ones like mine. They are still short terrorists.

I'm only on day two. So far I've been mostly rescued by the company of a new friend, but the rest of the time, I'm on my own. We may cut this trip short. But here's the rub... spring break is about to become permanent.

Soon enough it will just be she and I. Her and me. The kiddo and the mommy. All the time. Not just on spring break but every day. No one at six o'clock for me to say "Here - this is yours." Always the one to entertain. Always on.

I am afraid that I won't be able to cut it. I am a damn good mom. But what if I'm not good enough? What if I can't be her everything all the time? What if I screw her up? What if we don't survive spring break?