Periscopecake

Recently I was on a plane seated between my past and my future self. On my left was a young woman with a nine month old baby and on my right was an older lady who reported to have a forty year old son.

The younger woman had two other children (not with her) and the baby was very interested in me. She was petting me and feeling my watch and tattoos. The older lady was sweet to the cabin staff and looked to me to be in her seventies. And as I sat there, just shy of my forty-eighth birthday, on a trip home from having visited my twenty-three (and a half) year old son, I thought of the odd circumstances of seeing twenty years into my past and my future.

I have often thought of how much I would love a single day to hold those babies again or to hear the endless questions of a four year old or a nine year old, while simultaneously never wanting to do that ever again. The toil and energy; the slow days and fast years of having young children. The need to be “on” and aware that your every action and raised voice could sear into the memory of these children for better or worse.

The young mother apologized for her daughter touching and being in my space and I told her it was absolutely no bother. I held my arm up for this little twerp to fondle while I read my book. Keeping her tiny hands and mind occupied with me was the least I could do to help this mother and keep her baby engaged. (I suffer cuteness-aggression and it truly was all I could do not to want to squeeze this baby myself) I loved that I was entertaining to her without having to do a thing. It was no effort at all.

The older lady greeted the young mother and called her baby “he” and the mother calmly did her best to reply using “she” but it wasn’t received so “he” it was. I found this hilarious and very sweet. The mother didn’t outright correct the lady but the lady also wasn’t bothering to actually listen to the “she” noted several times. I can only assume that her having a son was part of the generalizing, and I felt camaraderie in knowing that I probably would have done the same as the young mother because who cares, there is no need to correct this minor error in a minor interaction. Sweet, none the less.

I don’t often feel “middle aged” and work hard to be fit and healthy. But time does certainly march on and someday I might be so lucky to talk about my forty something kids while mis-gendering a baby on a plane.

My oldest has lived away from home for four years now and my youngest is currently on a trip in Europe with a friend’s family. I never want to be twenty again but oh; to start all over! I have such envy for these two; and fear. I hate to know that they will suffer and thrive, love and lose. I die with anticipation of their lives and the struggles and growth that they have yet to experience. It is often hard to recognize that I am experiencing this life for the first time, just as they are, just as my own mother is. I have wisdom about so many things but am a stumbling fawn about so many others.

We raise these people to no longer need us and hope instead that they choose us anyway. I see it now as such a gift to have adult children. To talk like friends and hear dating, sex, friendship and work details. I am astounded at the depth and reflection these kids have. I like to have moments where I take some ownership of helping build such beings, but oftentimes I do think they kind of just come out that way; and we hopefully guide them a bit and make them (hopefully) not assholes.

I do not think of myself as a very “chill” person because my head has near constant racket and I experience emotions with tsunami force, but I suppose I am chill in many regards. I think the part of me that was raised “free range”; with little management, has made me also become a parent who is super nosy while also rarely involved. I am nosy about everything, so as far as my kids go, I guess that’s part of the package, while I simultaneously don’t require more than proof of life messages here and there.

Time has crept up slowly and also like a tornado. I have discovered that I still have unresolved habits or issues and that I sometimes don’t recognize myself in photos where I look like “somebody’s mom”. And seeing the twenty-years-ago me on one side and the twenty-years-ahead me on the other, is a stark reminder to cherish and build; explore and grow. It strikes the inside part of me that desperately wants to take in every sunny day and not waste a moment before its winter again. I suppose that as much as I fear the passing of time, I value it also. I want to see and do and be all of the things.

Meanwhile I appreciate that strange babies want to pet me and my own strange babies may someday be seated next to their future selves while holding a nine month old who is petting a previously young mom who now has her own twenty-somethings that she gets proof of life messages from here and there, who she gets to have big discussions with (and who are hopefully not assholes).