The Time Passing

This lady is alone in the ocean, without her kids.

Sometimes I look at women in their 50s, walking around by themselves or with their partners or friends. But not with their kids. Because their kids are grown and walking with their own friends or partners, or by themselves. And then I think of my own life and my two kids, and the depth of their need for me, and I remind myself that this won't last forever. In fact, it won't even last another fifteen years. At this point, we've already passed the days of diapers and crawling and nursing, and they will never come back. Sometimes I'm grateful, sometimes I'm wistful, but what I have recently felt most strongly is the passage of time.

Kids mark the passage of time more than anything I've ever experienced. Remember when you were a kid? Those memories are situated within a certain time period, marked by the house you lived in, the teacher you had, the friends you ran with. When you're a kid, that stuff changes all the time, which is why it's easier to place memories along a timeline. As a parent, I've discovered that I experience change at a similar pace. Before I had kids, the passage of three years was difficult to evaluate. When did we take that trip again? When did we buy that chair? When did I get that haircut? What year was that? For most people in their 30s and 40s, life has blurred somewhat. We have steady jobs, we've settled with our partners, we live in the same places for several years. If we're not careful, the days can pile up, one after another. Some people find a hobby. I decided to have kids. I was NOT PREPARED for what that meant. But what I wanted was something to focus on besides my work and deciding which restaurant to patronize on any given night. I wanted to get outside of myself.

Now, of course, I pine for the days when I could, on a whim, just go out and patronize whatever restaurant I choose whenever and wherever I choose to. I miss being unencumbered. But in addition to the regular wonderful stuff that kids bring into our lives (because they are hilarious and love so deeply), they grow and change so quickly that my own time slows slightly. This feels like a gift. When they were babies, I felt (sometimes with relief, sometimes with joy, sometimes with the most complete frustration I have ever experienced) the difference that each week brought. And then each month, and now each year. And within each year, my memories are easy to place: how tall was Jupiter? what clothes were they wearing? was George talking yet? My past is mapped by these roadmarks. In my effort to behave like a tourist in my own life, to get outside my head and feel each day as unique, I remind myself of the lush span of memories we are creating. I sound like some sort of self-help book, but it's really truly true. When I'm that woman in my 50s walking with my partner, without our kids, instead of a pile of days I'll have this whole long road behind me that stretches, inhabited by hundreds (thousands?) of small experiences that meant not much at the time but which mark my story, one week/month/year at a time.

(P.S. I am rarely so wistful. I think the full moon is getting to me.)