The Night before College

I drank in the words on the page, “ Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation…..In the morning I will direct my prayers to you, and I will look up. (Ps. 5) It wasn’t morning, but afternoon. I looked up, I cried out, I even leaned down and gave a long affectionate sniff to my Bible. I love the way books smell, especially this one.

Evening was approaching, and I stopped in the middle of all the hub bub and knew I had to lean in. Thinking, praying, correcting myself…”Come onnnn, they’re healthy…get a grip. At the beginning of the week, I’d done what I’ve learned is one of the great keys to life: Release! I had released this whole week to God. I don’t need to see them every moment. I don’t need to call for a mandatory family dinner every night. No, I’ve kicked against the goads enough times. I’ve learned this great truth. Release! It was a great lifting off my shoulders, my heart. I wasn’t just ok, I was great. Until today…

 I looked out my window and in the background I saw two little eight year old girls getting off the bus, walking back-pack laden, home. In the foreground was one of my eighteen year old girls, loading her car for college, tomorrow morning making that three hour trek across the great divide.

The contrast is too much for me. I need a drink. I know I shouldn’t, know this shouldn’t call for such measures, but, I can’t help myself. I do something I’ve never done before. I go into the place where I hide my secret stash. Go for the one thing that can pull me out….why does it have this power over me… Right now, I’m just glad it can.

Normally I put the chocolate ice cream into a glass and add the coca-cola, stir vigorously, and voila! A Black Cow, they call it. Not this time. This time I go completely off the rails. I open the half-eaten carton and in a crazy out-of-the-box moment of desperation I pour the coke directly into the carton of ice cream! Oh the thrill! It’s amazing! Who knew it could take on an even greater zing when eaten in this way? I begin to laugh! I’m laughing at myself…who cares? I’m laughing! Yes! Desperate times call for desperate measures, everybody knows that! Have some more!

I’m so glad God decided to make chocolate. I’m so glad that I know He was laughing with me this afternoon. We both got a real kick out of it.  While I was pouring the coke into the carton it reminded me of another time when I did something I never thought I’d do. It was eighteen years ago after I had gotten my miracle babies…five months apart…and I was desperately sleep-deprived. They were about a year old and had woken up and were chattering their baby babble in their cribs. I knew it was time to rise and shine, but I just couldn’t. I wanted to get up and make them a delicious and nutricious breakfast like I always did, but that morning, like the walking dead, I made it into the kitchen, knowing I was about to do something I swore I’d never do. I picked up the box of cheerios and walked, zombie-like, into their bedroom and poured them each a little pile of those O’s into their cribs, and went back and layed down in my bed. I felt so bad at the time, but as the years past, I have laughed about it many times. Today, I was able to laugh about it right in the moment. And as I scooped each delightful mouthful out of the carton I thought about how I’m not the perfect Mother, and I laughed cause it’s the end of an era. The end of eighteen years of really needing an ever-present grace-filled God to do my job in the moments when I just couldn’t, and Him always being there. Just like He was today, understanding the roller-coaster of emotions, and understanding the need for a little chocolate

Girls Raised in the Hood

Have you heard the country song entitled “You’re gonna miss this”? It’s about life, and how it moves on, quickly, and enjoying the moment we’re in, and not wishing it away.

The voices of the “girls raised in (our) Hood” fill the house. The front door opens and closes a thousand times. The visa card is being pulled in and out of my wallet again and again.( I’m not looking forward to the day the bill comes in. ) They gather around my kitchen island like they have a thousand times. Stories about boys bring out sighs of empathy, peals of  laughter and sage teenage advice, actually filled with a lot of wisdom. Moms in our Hood, “you done good”. Our girls aren’t perfect but they’ve got wisdom beyond their years. Maybe they don’t use it for themselves all the time, but they’ve got it. Thank God. They’ve got it.

Up the stairs they go, taking their energy and their innocent, hopeful and expectant conversations into the teenage lair that is our upstairs. Their picnic lunch is packed. Time to lie around while they do their rendition of Project Runway, examining, critiquing, and trying on each others clothes and the plethora of styles in my girl’s closet. That closet represents all her tastes and moods, so many sales and “had-to-haves”, and lots and lots of her hard-earned baby-sitting money. That closet is one of the things she loves about life and sharing it with her fellow fashionista’s makes it all the sweeter.

I’m supposed to be listening to a podcast right now. Not really supposed to be, but wanta be. That’s a part of my day that I love, and I love that I can do it in the morning, or late at night when my early-to-bed- early-to-rise husband has gone on to dreamland, and I am waiting for one or both of my girls to walk through the door and flop down on the couch and start my very favorite part of my day…the download. All the details of their day, what someone said, how it made them feel, how they are processing just growing up.

But instead of listening to my podcast, I pull the ear plugs out, and just sit and listen to them. Does their conversation have the life-changing stuff this podcast contains? No, but when they all go off to college in three weeks I can listen to a million podcasts. I can sit and read my beloved books. My visa won’t be straining like it is now. But their voices, their laughter, their refreshing innocent outlook on life will be filling dorm rooms and hallways far away from here.

So for now I’m setting aside all the things I can do while they’re gone and just sitting and listening to that beloved sound, as if I were at a great  symphony. Because it is music to me. The best kind. Music that represents 18 years of physical, emotional and spiritual energy. Countless hours of prayer, meals and snacks and packed lunches. Rattles and push-toys and baby dolls and bikes and now, cars. And boys!  Oh the boys. Sweet little crushes that are since forgotten or bring belly laughs. Now the boy talk is more serious. Where does he stand with God? What does he want to do with his life? And for Momma, where does he want to live?

I need to get up from this spot, this vantage point and get on with my day. I strain and look at the clock. Gotta go. Come on, get up, get going. But this “music” is intoxicating…and fleeting.

I stand on the fringe of a new frontier. Motherhood is taking a new turn, changing. I look up at the framed chalkboard in my “coffice” and read the words I wrote, “EMBRACE CHANGE”. I don’t want to, Plain and Simple. I know the pain of “kicking against the goads”, I have done it, I am doing it. Although I see the joy college graduations and weddings and grandbabies have brought to my peers, right now, I don’t want to let go of this moment, this season. It took a whole lot to get to this sweet spot. The days of them rolling their eyes and then vehemently denying that they did it, are over. All that hard work and hope has paid off. Now its time to enjoy them as very young friends. Very fun friends. My favorite kind of friends.

And Voila’, they are good cooks! One of them just brought me a plate of the yummiest chicken salad ever, the other is making a delish gourmet supper tonight.

 Yes, bring on the long-awaited perks!!

 And Lord. Show me how to navigate from this sweet spot to the next one you have in store for me. “Cause you know I’m all about sweet spots!

 But more than that, show me what I can do for and with you. Let’s do a little Cosmic project together…that sounds like fun.

As Plain as the Nose on My Face

An Answer as Plain as the Nose on My Face….

I'm not even gonna ask if you've ever asked God to make something clear to you when a decision had to be made…cause I kinda already know that you have. From purchasing a home to accepting a job on down to what dress you should wear to that interview or that wedding…go ahead…admit it..you've done it. You've asked and He has answered.

I'm officially and abruptly an empty-nester, and to make things more fun and interesting, at the very moment when my oldest daughter left for college, my slightly younger daughter took off to a far away state to serve a family in great need. And because this is my life, yes, precisely at the same moment (or so it seemed) my husband, Mr. Ten Days, accepted a huge new responsibility at work requiring more travel now than in our twenty-five years of marriage. And let me tell you, he'll dang well be traveling even more, cause he best be takin me on one whopping anniversary trip!

So, there I sat in a quiet, empty house. I remember not so long ago when I used to revel in moments like those. I called it "soaking up the silence". My friends would call and ask "whatcha doin"? And I'd reply, "soakin' up the silence". Well, after 82 days (but who's counting?) of soaking up the silence in this once revolving door of a house, I do not care to languish in another second of silence.

At my lamenting, many friends have suggested that I get a dog. I discussed this idea with Mr. Ten Days very early on in our "new normal", and was met with what one might call 'hostility' where words like divorce and other plausible threats were tossed around. But, after witnessing shall we say "several" melt-downs, which resulted in the purchase of a very nice purse and a wonderful coat, Mr. Ten Days actually suggested himself that the purchase of a dog might be in order, after all.

 I had put a great deal of thought into acquiring a sweet little thing that would love and comfort me through my empty-nest transitional days, and yet, I hesitated. In my pursuit of a suitable companion, I had entertained the unlikely idea of a bird. A talking bird. A beautiful talking bird. The kind that you see on "Pet Tricks" that would actually lay in my arms like a baby and snuggle! And talk!
Mr. Ten Days was adamantly opposed to such an addition to our family, but frankly was so beaten down and confused by the unhappy woman who had replaced his once-happy wife, he was pretty much willing to do anything (legal) to make me "snap out of it".

That's about when my neighbor told me about the gorgeous pure white cockatoo that someone wanted  to give him. This beautiful creature performed all the cute cuddly antics seen on "Pet Tricks". My neighbor's family hated this bird…don't ask…so he and I felt that the perfect solution was for him to give me the bird. He could come by and visit it and bring it to work with him like he always did, and I would have a little companion to chat with and cheer me up. WOW! A free beautiful loving snuggly cockatoo? Come to Mama!

So that morning over he comes with his wife who is my dear friend, to introduce me to "Cotton" the cockatoo. Sidenote: I did  make it a point to ask God to make it perfectly clear to me if this bird was to be my own new child-replacement. My neighbor walked in, bird on shoulder. I remained calm and confident, just like the internet said I should be upon introduction. Cotton seemed to like me. She climbed up my arm, sat on my shoulder, and cooed at me. I cooed back. We were connecting! It was a beautiful thing! Then in one lightning-quick strike of a move, Cotton took her strong- enough-to-break your-finger off (and that 's a fact) beak and bite me on the nose!

As blood gushed and required pressure, I got the distinct impression that this bird was a no-go.

I had asked God to make it plain…well, He did…as plain as the nose on my face!

I Don’t think I’m going to be Okay

You pray your head off for God to give you babies. You hold your breath for nine months, avoiding all the caffeine and sugar and any other remote possibility of anything that could keep you from having a perfectly healthy, smart baby. God places your little miracle in your arms, and they’re not just healthy and smart but beyond beautiful too. Having crossed the finish line of getting them here safe and sound you now embark on the next eighteen years of getting to a place that you never wanted to be.

All that rocking and singing in the middle of the night, the hugs and kisses and nuzzling turns into a toddler who is sooo busy discovering, that they only stop by your leg for a quick hug every twenty minutes or so. Then the stops get fewer and  fewer and they go to things like ballet and gymnastics and their bones grow strong cause you feed them all the good stuff . You don’t take your eyes off of them for one second to avoid any broken bones or scarred knees. You pray for their teachers and against any crazy people who might abduct them or start shooting in their school. You plan your day around the moment you can sit in the pick-up line. That’s when your day really starts, cause all the stuff you did while they were at school was just so you could be prepared to feed them the good stuff and be rested enough to help them ( hopefully patiently) with their homework. You cherish every moment of reading to them and then every moment of them reading to you. Or maybe you spend a few years homeschooling them. And altho it’s totally not your thing, and maybe its not their’s either, at least you’re together. You think you’re losing your mind and you eat a whole lot of end-of-a-hard-day ice cream, but you cherish that too. You teach them to sit up straight and pretty and and to have the beautiful  manners of  a foreign Ambassador. Yes ma’m, No ma’m, thank you ma’m are non-negotiable, especially to grown-ups other than yourself.  Get those braces so that beautiful  heart-melting smile is picture perfect. A winter cold? Off to the Doctor you go, keep those babies protected in every way you can. Pray hard every night. Pray with them and for them. Turn them over to God every Morning for His protection and guidance and His will. And don’t forget every morning to pray for those husbands that will come along and one day and be your sons and the Daddy’s to your grandbabies. Save and sacrifice and send them to the best schools so they’ll be educated and cultured and conversational. Make sure they have plenty of friends to play and interact with, even if you have to import them from other neighborhoods during the newly hormonal years, when feelings are hurt every ten minutes.  Agree to have all the sleep-overs at your house, cause you’re probably one of the few Moms who listen in on the intercom to make sure those curiosity years conversations don’t end up in some wrong discoveries. Protect them. Put that lock on that computer.  Protect them physically and emotionally and every other way you can think of. Don’t watch the news cause its too scarey. Buy just the right soaps and moisturizers and make-up so those beautiful complexions are glowing. Dress them cute from day one so they’ll have a great sense of style, to match they’re effervescent personality. Teach them how to do their laundry and how to cook and clean so they’ll be great Mommies and great wives. Put your whole heart and soul and then some into these precious gifts, and then in one fell swoop, do something harder than all of that, all those years, day and night, night and day put together…. Do the hardest thing of all, do the last thing you’d ever want to do. With a hurricane in your stomach and an anchor using its full weight to sink your Momma’s heart, do it. Go ahead. Do it. ...LET THEM GO.

Basic Math

I’m sitting in probably my favorite spot in the whole world. It’s my been-through-lots-of-hard-times-with-me white chaise, in my “coffice” [coffee office].  It’s my “sweet spot”.   From this oh-so-comfy perch, I've had a bird’s eye view all summer of my daughter Coco as she has been the  nanny for three little girls who live directly across the street.

I am not one of those “I’ll think about that tomorrow” Scarlett O’Hara types. I live in reality, probably too much. Too much thinking about today, and definitely too much thinking about tomorrow…and the next day and the month and the year after that. Especially since this time next year our Coco will drive away to some college. We don’t know which college yet, or how far away it will be, but I know this:  however close or far, for this Momma, it will be too far.

That’s why this summer has been so great for me. There she was, looking like the young Mother of these three little tow heads. I see her playing with them, taking their pictures, painting their nails, running them all over town, going to the pottery place, swimming or roller skating. They are crazy about her. And, she gets to come over here any time of the day and drop by for a quick visit with my pretend grandchildren.

Today is her last day with them. Senior year starts tomorrow. They were just here, and I said to them, “Ya’ll have  had a really fun summer, huh?” Three pig-tailed heads nod in unison.  “I’m really glad Coco got to be your nanny this summer. Ya know why?” I ask and the oldest one pipes up: “’Cause she gets $400.00 a week?”( HAHAHA. Well, besides THAT. ) I laughed and said, “No, it’s 'cause I get to watch Coco from my window.” They all tilted their heads and smiled and I smiled back… then Coco gave me “the look” and ushered them out the door as if to say:  enough of the sappy sentimentality, already!                          

Today probably marks the last day that Coco will be “living” across the street from me. I remember when she was seven I asked her if she would call me every day when she grew up, and she quickly replied, “Call you? I’ll just come over, 'cause I’m gonna live next door!” And I said…. “promise?”

That was ten very short years ago. They flew by in ways I never dreamed they could. The difference between a seven year old and a seventeen year old cannot just be ten years!! It’s impossible. And although I am basically retarded in basic math, I still come up with ten when I subtract 7 from 17.

So today I kick down my fears and draw on my Faith to face the next ten years. Ten years that will most likely bring a college graduation, a wedding and possibly a grandbaby.

Since it is impossible to freeze her at age seven, or even seventeen, I give a long nostalgic sigh and a big gulp, and have no choice but to say, Bring it on!

My First Rodeo

Have you seen those t-shirts that say”This ain’t my first rodeo”? They make me laugh out loud and smile and think, boy, is that ever the truth.  Reminds me of what I have told my girls, seems like a thousand times….”I was born at night, but not last night”.  Yes, I have been “around the block” maybe one too many times, but, even though I am considered a Senior citizen by the Williamson County Rec Center, there still are some things I haven’t experienced yet.

Last Saturday our daughter Caroline graduated from High School. That was my “first rodeo”, in that department. And although I definitely “came to the dance late”, and there’s probably tons of you out there that have already been to that “Rodeo”, I hadn’t. Not til last weekend, at least.

I’ve been preparing for this day since her first day of Kindergarten, which, incidentally was last week, or so it seems to this Momma.

Makes me wanna stand on a very tall and wide soapbox and shout to all the new Moms out there “BELIEVE EVERYTHING THEY’RE TELLING YOU ABOUT HOW FAST IT GOES, AND DON’T ROLL YOUR EYES EVERYTIME THEY SAY TO ENJOY EVERY MINUTE OF IT!  (that was me shouting).

If I had a dollar for every time some well-meaning Mother-of-a-graduate rodeo veteran told me that…let’s just say I’d be writing this from some island with my own personal cook and masseuse.

But now I’m one of them, and I struggle with telling young Mothers those very same words, or just keeping my mouth shut…and drool over their soft sweet babies or chubby chatty toddlers.

Most of the time, I restrain myself, knowing full well that they’ve already heard it a gazillion times, but sometimes I’m feeling verklempt enough to just go ahead and say it. I tell myself that somehow no one, or not enough Rodeo vets  have told them, and that they need to hear it from me, and when they see the  tell-tale glistening in my eyes that they’ll stop and think about it.

The truth is, I was so utterly aware of it, soaking up every hug and squeeze and smell, telling and re-telling all their cute little brilliant quips (even though I didn’t get to post them on Facebook or Instagram) trying to enjoy every minute, but knowing that is impossible… and it snuck up on me anyway. There’s just some things in life that cannot be simulated, or known what it’ll feel like until, this time, it’s you. It’s you with the lump in your throat, fighting back the tears, losing that battle and wondering if it would be really weird if you let out just one relieving sob. Okay, relax, I didn’t let out that sob. I held it together, sort of.

I had been feeling on the verge of tears for the last six weeks since she shone like a constellation as she presented her Senior thesis, defended  it, (with the coolness of a ph.d. candidate) in front of a panel of teachers, and presented her Senior 40 hour project, each receiving a perfect score. ..Something that has never been done in the history of the school. Her thesis was on abortion and she’s already been asked to speak at a conference workshop by someone who was there and heard her wax eloquent. WELL NO WONDER  I  was such a mess as she strode confidently down the aisle in that cap and gown, looking all grown up, even though she’s barely seventeen and I know she’s my baby. To me, we’re still at the beginning and she’s sitting at her little desk  learning her ABC’s and 123’s. But, that wasn’t last week, and yes, we are at the beginning…the beginning of learning to let go.

Next year I get to ride in this rodeo all over again. And although I’ll know a little more about how  to stay in the saddle, I imagine I’ll be just as big a cry-baby cowgirl as I was on Saturday.