40

I’ve been thinking about this day for a while now, as it has grown steadily closer.  And now that it’s here, I have two things to say.  First, to those over 40 – you were right.  Everything you said about turning 40 was right.  Secondly – to those under 40 – they are right.  Everything you heard about turning 40 is right.  So listen to me, because as I write this, I’m still just 39.  I’m still one of you.  Except you punk twenty-somethings who already think you know everything.  (Oh no – I’ve got to hurry – the 40 is starting to take over…)

I write because it seems so absurd that I’ve reached this point in life.  I want to go around and show it off, like I did as a kid when I found something so bizarre that it had to be shared.  “Look at this!  Isn’t this so weird??”, we would compel those around us to join in the observation of whatever rock or fungus or fossil.  And so I share with you this absurdity – I am 40.  WEIRD!  How can it be? I don’t feel 40.

But as I observe myself, there are too many details to ignore.  My hands are not the hands of youth.  They wrinkle and pucker, I suppose with the years of sun that they have absorbed (SPF, young'uns - it's true).  My waistline is certainly nothing like it was 20 years ago.  Five children, a serious love affair with peanut butter, and little time to exercise (see: five children) has insidiously padded my frame over the years.  My eyesight is steady, although I notice my focus takes a moment or two more.  Forty years of life have begun now to show on my face, etching themselves around my eyes and mouth, and a particularly annoying crease near my jawline on the left.  Google has suggested that I sleep on my back to prevent more of these from occurring.  Sorry Google, sorry face - side sleeper for life.

I look again and more details show themselves.  My compassion has expanded, my empathy deepened, and my knowledge has grown.  My life that I have lived has allowed me joys that soar to the heavens, hurts that have gutted me, and stretches of ennui that have lasted longer than I anticipated.  I see people and the hurt behind their eyes and actions.  I see the world and the ugliness and brokenness.  I can give grace to the young, I can give mercy to the hurting, where I couldn’t before.  I move slower to judgement and quicker to love.  I know how to deal with what matters, and let the other things go.  I can stick to my guns, I can step up and do what needs to be done. 

And I look back at myself 20 years ago – the one with smooth skin, and narrow hips, and glossy hair – and I love her, but I don’t wish her back.  My skin may be wrinkled, but it’s comfortable.  I’m happy that I’ve made it this far.  I am pleased that I have grown and changed.  Even if I could turn back the clock, I wouldn’t want to give up all that I have gained in these years.  And so with that, I embrace 40 and however many years beyond that God allows me.  And I’ll keep growing and keep changing.

Oh, the beauty of age!

My friend, the Editor

Yesterday, in the middle of a regular, innocuous Tuesday, I got a Facebook notification that a high school friend had mentioned me in a comment.  I clicked over to find that she had tagged me on the thread of another high school friend.  The original post was cryptic, yet obvious at the same time.  It turned out to be his final goodbye, as we soon found out.  He took his own life at the age of 38.

My friend, Brian, was a close friend all throughout high school.  I first met him my freshman year, most likely the first day.  Our last names being Dubbs and Edmison, we were pretty close in the alphabetical lineup.  I think only Tri Duong ever separated the two of us in the roll book.  In addition to that, our schedules aligned similarly: we were both signed up for Spanish II, GT English, GT History, and Journalism I - four out of six classes together.  He had just moved into the school district the previous summer and didn't know anyone.  I was coming in with the rest of my jr high classmates, but my friends were scattered among the larger crowds of high school and very few were in classes with me.  So we became friends.

Journalism, however, was where our friendship really developed.  Once you got past Journalism I, you became part of the newspaper staff.  It was the last period of the day, and the most relaxed.  The staff was small, no more than a dozen, and we spent hours and hours working together.  Well, the ten days before an issue was published, we spent hours and hours working.  The rest of the time, we spent hours and hours goofing around.

High school, to me, was not something I overtly enjoyed.  I didn't attend many football games or participate in extracurriculars other than the newspaper.  I was never a big crowd kind of girl.  But in the small circle of people on the staff, I shone.  My fondest memories of high school in general revolve around that back room where we wrote our stories, typed them up on that huge, ancient copywriter, pieced together the layout, and thought up headlines.  For three years, we poured our lives into the paper and into each other.

I think all of us on the staff, to some degree, fit in so well together because we didn't necessarily have a fit elsewhere.  We were a silly bunch, to be sure.  We gave out ridiculous nicknames, we rubber cemented a Bianca can to the wall, we examined our student teacher's lunch when he wasn't around and kept track of what his wife packed for him, we were crazy about holiday border tape, we ran to Taco Bell on press nights....all silly, teenage stuff that we laughed uproariously at, while Brian shook his head at us.  But he always laughed in the end.

Our junior and senior year, Brian was the Editor-in-Chief.  I held the title of Features Editor, and two others from our Journalism I class took Sports Editor and News Editor.  We ruled the roost.  Brian was a great editor; he had a knack for reporting and was great at jumpstarting my thought process when I couldn't get a story started.  I never once turned an article in on time; he had a soft spot for me and I exploited it endlessly when deadlines came up.

The evening of graduation was the last I saw of him for ten years.  I was ready to be done with high school and move on with my life.  We lined up alphabetically (Duong, Tri still separating us); it was a hot, humid sticky night where the looming threat of rain forced the ceremony inside the cramped gymnasium.  We sat through the entirety of the speakers.  I kept whispering that I was walking off the stage and out the door once I got my diploma.  He kept whispering back that I wasn't.  Finally, it was over.  The class was asked to stand, pronounced official graduates, and I looked at him.  He knew I didn't want to lose my cap when we all tossed them in the air. Wordlessly,  he passed his to me.  That's the one I threw.

Those were the days before email and Facebook made connecting so easy.  We lost track of each other until our ten year reunion.  He sidled up to me and put his arm around my shoulders.  I didn't even recognize him until I saw his nametag.  I remember laughing as we recounted memories of our glory days.  A few years later, Facebook opened their ranks to the masses and we friended each other.  I watched the pictures of his new home being built and congratulated him on the news that his wife was pregnant.  At some point, my right leaning sensibilities and his left leaning opinions led to an unpleasant exchange and he unfriended me.  I just rolled my eyes and thought that if he didn't want to be friends, I wasn't going to chase after him.

I'm sad that Brian is gone.  I'm sad that his wife, young daughter, and teenaged son are hurting.  I'm sad that he felt that this was the only option.  I'm sad that I didn't pursue our friendship.  I'm sad that I won't be able to reminisce with him at our twenty year reunion, or our twenty-fifth, or our thirtieth, or any more.  I'm just horribly sad.

In his final note, he said something about the past 30 years leading to this moment.  This is the saddest of all to me in this whole sad mess.  I wish I knew he felt this way.  I wish I realized he was hurting back when we were friends.  Teenagers are so self-absorbed; they walk around thinking their own problems are the biggest, often not realizing that their friends beside them are dealing with problems as well.  And sadly, we adults can be the same way.  We're more sophisticated about it, more subtle about focusing on ourselves.  But all around us, people hurt.  Friends are broken hearted, hopeless, hurting.  It doesn't take much to see, if we take the time to look.

I think Brian was happy in the time that I knew him.  I think that he had dark times that I didn't know about as well, but I think that the years spent on the newspaper staff were good ones.  They certainly were fun.  They were what got me through high school, and really, I believe, him too.  In the midst of the swirling cauldron of adolescence, we found our niche.  And we found some friends.

Inner monologue

"Bread and coffee.  Bread and coffee.  Bread and coffee...wow - how much are those planter pots?  They're beautiful!  Oh - too much.  I bet I could find those flowes at Lowes.  They always have good flowers.  What did I need again?  Right - bread and coffee.  Bread and coffee.  Bread and....are we out of batteries?  I just got the AAs; do I need Cs or Ds?  Hmm..better check before I buy.  Bread and coffee.  Bread and coffee.  Bread and....Score!  Food sample!  Mmmmmmm....this bread is so good.  I wonder what butter they use?  Oh man, I remember that Irish butter I tried once.  Where was that?  Oh - here's my bread.  Two loaves, $3.99.  Better get four.  I can't believe how fast we run through it these days.  Maybe I should get more?  Wait - where am I going to put 6 loaves of bread?  Four is fine.  Got the bread; what else? Right - coffee.  Coffee. Coffee.  Coff....pork tenderloin, $3.00 off total price.  Ok.  So $3.00 off means that each pound will then be....am I dividing or....$3.00 off, 7 lbs, so I can divide it in half for two meals with leftovers for about $7.00 a meal.  That'll work.  Back to coffee.  Coffee.  Coffee.  Juice?  We need juice.  Nope - Giant had better prices this week.  I'll run over there tomorrow.  Coffee.  Coffee.  Coffee.  Wow - look at those strawberries!  This seems early in the season to have those out.  $6.49 is a great price for 2 lbs.  The kids will be happy.  I could use them for that dessert I have to make too.  When was that?  Hmm..what else do I need?  Maybe I'll do an appetizer instead.  I've been doing lots of sweets lately.  How much flour do I have?  Ok - back to coffee. Coffee.  Coffee.  Coffee.  Ooo, we're out of peanut butter. What row is that in?  Eh, only Jif.  I thought they carried Skippy.  I like that Skippy.  I really like that Peter Pan.  Have I ever tried the Planters kind?  There was a coupon in the paper last Sunday.  I should try it.  Oh wait.  I think we did try it.  Did I like it?  Why don't they carry Skippy here?  I'll check Target later this week.  Mmm..I love those frozen spring rolls.  The last time I got them, though, everyone loved them at the store and couldn't stand them once we got home.  Fickle kids.  Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.  Ah ha - coffee.  $12.99.  This should last us a while.  I wonder where those strawberries are from?  I bet they're from Chile or something like that.  California?  Huh.  They really are huge.  I can do those for lunch tomorrow.  Ok.  To the checkout.  What did I need again?  Oh right - bread and coffee.  Good!  Now what was it that I was thinking about for dinner tonight?"

Death of a Campus

A few months ago, I received notice that my alma mater was closing.  The reasons are unimportant, for the deal is already done.  The academic programs have been transferred to another institution and classes have begun under the new administration.  This past Friday, however, a photo was posted to an alumni site, showing a moving van in front of the building.  That image caught me by surprise and almost undid me.

As sad as it was to hear about the college closing, the move from the campus was much worse.  My collegiate time there is done; college campuses are fickle in a four year cycle.  Wait a few years to go back and it's almost as if you were never there at all.  The new students have moved in and claimed it as their own.  It doesn't matter if you were the Student Body President or Newspaper Editor or Sorority Sweetheart four years running - someone else fills those shoes now.  Pull a good prank and you might get a flicker of vague recognition: "Oh, that was you?  Yeah, I heard about that one."  But by in large, once you're gone, you're history.

But the campus, oh the campus.  That's another story.  Because the campus is always there.  The campus is the backdrop to my undergraduate years.  It's the third party in all my pictures.  It's the constant for each class.  No matter how long ago I attended, I lived in the same rooms as the most recent class, studied in the same classrooms, ate in the same dining hall.  We all skipped out of chapel through the same door, climbed the same fence near the front gate, and hopped over the same clogged drainpipe outside the classroom door.  My pictures of the place are suddenly not adequate, for they all show the campus only in the blurry background.  The physical setting wasn't important at the time - why would it be?  It's not like its going anywhere, reasoned my younger self.  Today I rake through the piles of photos, all showing smiling college students in the snow, on the soccer field, at the picnic tables, at the basketball games....all blocking the background that I'm now so desperate to see.

Even if I had a plethora of photos to remember, though, there's no substitute for the real thing.  We as humans love to be where things happened.  There's just something about being in the same proximity to certain events.  It's why we visit historical battlefields, pilgrimage to Graceland, flock to monuments.  Something important happened right where I'm standing, we think.  And now I'm part of it.  And something important happened on my campus.  I grew up, I discovered myself, I learned more than I bargained for, I made lifelong friends, I had my heart broken, I cried as if there would be no tomorrow, I fell in love, I felt like I could take on the world, I was changed... And I remember all these things as I walk around, as I step into the basement classroom and get that first musty whiff, as I catch a glimpse of the scoring table, as I run my hands over the piano that I spent so many practice hours on, as I walk down the halls that I walked tens and hundreds of times over my years there.  This was the door that I was opening when I was bombarded by waterballoons on the way back from play practice.  That was the window that we accidentally broke minutes before the Dean of Students walked by.  Here is the door you could sneak out of after hours because it was far enough away from the RAs room.  This is the corner of the classroom that I was sitting in when I first met my roommate.  That is the soccer field where we dragged that old couch to the middle and hung out until the night was dark and deep.  This is the parking lot where I walked right past my newly acquired car because I couldn't remember what it looked like.

All these memories are triggered by simply being there.  All these stories that make sense to only me and my fellow alumni.  All these landmarks that I won't be able to share with my children anymore.  The older ones have been to the campus many times; they have heard some of our stories and seen our old haunts.  The younger ones will grow up listening to the stories we tell without any frame of reference.  They won't get the chance to kick the soccer ball on the same field dad did, or walk into the office where mom worked, or drive around the back of the gym where we would sneak a quick forbidden kiss.  All these moments live on for me while the campus still stands.

Strangely enough, I am the second generation to live this.  My parents are also alumni of the same institution, although they attended when it was located elsewhere.  For years afterwards, my sisters and I would find ourselves in the back of the station wagon, not knowing where we were going, when suddenly the car would slow to a crawl on a block of vacant, dilapidated buildings.  My parents in the front seat would murmur to each other and point to places in the past, scenes only they could see.  They would occasionally narrate their memories to us, but we just rolled our eyes and whined to go home.  Then the inevitable day came when we turned on the familiar block only to find that it had been completely razed.  Where they once lived and worked and learned and lived was now nothing but an empty lot.  Surely we can go home now, we thought.  But once again, the car slowed to a crawl, and my parents pointed out to each other where the buildings used to be, and the memories still came.  That was the last time we ever went down there.

And so my memories will be one day gone as well.  I'll always remember my years spent there, always have friends and fellow alumni to jog my memory.  But the campus itself will no longer be my talisman, able to conjure up a thousand thoughts just by driving through the gates.  It's sad, much more sad that I expected it to be.  But life goes on.  And it will be converted to a new purpose and others will make their own memories there, far different than mine.  But it will always be my campus.  

Someone has taken my baby.

Someone has taken my baby.
I know, for I left him here just a moment ago
In his footie pajamas, his sweet mouth puckered
With droplets of milk, his eyes half closed in sleep,
His lips still nursing my breast not there.

Someone has taken my baby.
I know, for I just smoothed my hand over his
Peach fuzz head, pried his sweaty fingers from
My flesh, felt his sticky tree frog toes,
Breathed in his baby smell.

Someone has taken my baby.
I know, for I just laid him to bed, and when
I blinked, he was gone, and a boy lay in his place,
Legs stretched long and lean, arms dangling here and there,
Lashes laid dark upon his cheek.  The peach fuzz
Has moved from his head to his jaw, the belly
Now is sinewy muscle, not the sweet chub that I kissed
Over and over to the sound of bubbly delight.
His face is shadowed no longer by the nightlight, but by the
Man that he will be.

 Someone has taken my baby and left me with memory.

 6-28-2011

Learning to love

Many years ago, when I thought about my life with kids, I imagined our house to be The House. You know, the house where all the kids end up hanging out? I wanted to be the mom who could be mom to my own kids and Second Mom to their friends. I never wanted to be 'Cool Mom' or try to be buddy-buddy; I just wanted to be The Mom.

Fast forward to present day.

Turns out I don't really like other kids.

Well, that's not totally true. Let me back up for a moment: My husband and I made the decision to put our kids into public school for a number of reasons, one being that we are looking to build relationships with people. We've gotten to know a few families and have had the opportunity to have their kids in our home. One family in particular has visited quite a bit. The son is a classmate of our oldest, and his sister is two years younger. She can be a little.....much. Like when she opens my cabinet to ask for something to eat. Or when she tells me that my baby doesn't want to be in her high chair anymore. Or when she tries to take my 2 year old to the bathroom. I feel my ire rising, and feel the need to put her in her place. This is my house, not yours; keep your hands to yourself. You may be thirsty, but I will be the one to decide what we're going to drink, not you. I'm the mom, thank you, I'll figure out when the baby wants to get down.

Oh yeah. I'm getting territorial with a six year old. Not my finest hour.

Right in the middle of my snit fit, God tapped gently on my shoulder and reminded me that this is what I wanted. This is the reason that we chose public school, this is the reason that we wanted kids in our house. She doesn't need me to correct her, she needs me to love her. She needs me to show her Jesus. She doesn't know that's what she needs, nor does her brother or mother for that matter, but Jesus is what they need. And this is how I show Him, by loving her.

How in the world do I think I'm going to stand having all these kids in my house over the years? Kids come from all different places in life, all different backgrounds, all different personalities, habits, you name it. My job is to love them, to show them the One who can love far better than I ever can. My job is to give them the love that they might not get anywhere else. My job is to be a mom who is capable of all this love because I'm not concerned with besting a six year old, but rather I've laid down my self to take up Christ.

And that's The Mom that I want to be.

Grace and gift cards

Sometimes I just don't like my kids. This is something that lurks deep and dark in the back of every parent's minds, but we just don't say it aloud. Ever. I love them deeply and I really do like them quite a bit. They're funny and charming and sweet and fun to be around...mostly. But then there are just....those days.

To be specific, a series of snow, ice, and sick days had stranded us in the house for close to a week. School was cancelled, the roads were too slick to drive anyway, and another storm was bearing down on us. Cabin fever was hitting hard, and kids were squabbling with each other, melting down over the smallest issue, and generally behaving miserably. I did not like them. One bit.

Salvation came in the form of a late Christmas present from a dear friend. The mailman delivered a package containing Toys R Us gift cards for each kid. Perfect, I thought - a chance to get out of the house and get a new toy to tide us over during the next shut-in.

The plan worked perfectly. We got to Toys R Us and spent a leisurely hour walking through the aisles, each child carefully examining their options. The tension was broken; tempers were cheered, words were kinder, moods were brighter.

Everyone finally had their choice and to extend the benevolent feeling, we even stopped in the candy aisle for an additional treat before proceeding to the register. All was going well. And then I realized that I didn't have my wallet with the gift cards.

Hoping it had just fallen out into the van, I lined the three older ones up against the wall, and ran out to check. No luck. I hurried back in to find my sweet angels sitting quietly where I had left them. They looked at me expectantly and asked if I had found it. I shook my head no, then called home. Sure enough, dear husband found it on the dining room table. I hung up, turned to the kids, and braced myself. "We have to leave the toys here for now. I don't have any money. We have to go home."

And they took my hands and walked out without even a whimper.

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that. On the drive home, it occurred to me that they probably didn't like me too much in those days either. I was sick of being at home too and it showed; I was sharp with them, less forgiving than I should have been, my irritation showing outright. And when my mistake was on full display, they simply loved me. They had every right to be upset. I can't imagine a situation more disappointing to a child than to have to leave promised toys at the store. But they understood. They understood and they loved me, and I was humbled to accept their grace.

I trip over my own shortcomings, tangle myself in self-satisfying sin, and justify my selfish whims time and time again, and I back-pedal furiously when I'm confronted with the truth about myself. But God gives grace generously, lavishly. And He gives grace through little children, who sometimes give their mothers a gift they don't even know they are giving.

We drove home, picked up the wallet, drove back, got the toys, and picked up a special fast food dinner to boot. And we survived the next ice storm with new toys. We even liked each other this time.