There is Tired..and then there is TIRED

At my age, sleep has suddenly become the most precious commodity. Where did those days go when you hit the pillow and never rolled over again until dawn? Gone the way of age and hormones and fewer activities to manage day to day. All those years were so filled to the brim that by the time I went to bed I was almost comatose. Now it is quickly to sleep only to wake up hour after hour. Surely I have not arrived at the age where I will never sleep through again and will need an afternoon nap!





Thankfully when I was so busy I could not breathe I actually both enjoyed it and appreciated that it was the happiest time of my life. Moving from hot breakfast to making lunch to work to the school to pick someone up, to lacrossse and baseball and horseback riding and soccer and tutors and driving lessons and ballet and school meetings and making dinner and managing homework and doing the laundry and cleaning the house...on it went until I fell asleep from exhaustion only to wake up and do it all again. How grateful I was and am for such a full and happy life as a Mom.




Perhaps as the next stages come in life things will settle into a routine again...in the meantime I am going home to do downward dog and check the status of my knees!

Age and Enlightenment

Yoga Shock and Awe

My after-work exercise classes are my antidote to empty-nest malaise--not only helping to maintain health (that goes without saying) but sanity, too.  And never mind a better night's sleep while fumbling through menopause.  I have been reacquainting myself with my very own body as we stretch, balance and contort and erase all the day's residuals.  For some reason during my last class, right in the middle of downward dog pose ("dunwood face-in dawg" as one instructor pronounces it) I experienced genuine shock.  And awe, as I came face-to-face with my knees, albeit upside down.  Who's legs are those?  What's with all the saggy skin?  The first thing that came to mind: The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees (1924)!  It was all I could do to keep from laughing (upside down).    What happened to those days when exercise was disguised as playtime.  Knees weren't saggy, but got scraped during childhood fun like falling off a merry-go-round or climbing trees.  Reality check.  Ouch.    

Retired...minus benefits

     Last week I had to give one of our customers a lift.  "Are you a lacrosse mom?" she asked, noticing the decals on my car's rear window.  "Yes," I replied, then hesitated.  "I guess I would be considered a retired lax mom since (sigh) all my lacrosse players are now out of the house..."    Used to be I was a lacrosse mom with a capital L.   Booster club business! Shuffling boys & girls game schedules!  Out-of-town tournaments!  $$$ spent on summer camps!.... it was enough to make one's head spin.
       There once was a time when I knew the latest releases on equipment, and the newest trends in uniforms for girls and boys.   I knew the names of all the area high school coaches.  I  read my sons' Inside Lacrosse magazine each month.  I was on a first name basis with local lax vendors (which isn't all that remarkable as there weren't very many in Georgia then.)  
         After 15 years of lacrosse involvement, I really am a retired lax mom.  As a mother, I am also no longer in charge of my children's school, medical and general life schedules.  Sitting in the waiting room not too long ago, I realized that I used to see my dentist and her staff at least eight times a year (or more) when there were three children in the mix.  Now, I no longer nag anybody about homework, projects, chores, or filling out college applications.  I don't even get to manage birthday party invitations.    Does that mean I am a retired mom?  With the most intense part of motherhood behind me now, am I still an active mom?       
         I think back to that day when my first child was born:  the nurse handed me a tiny bundle wrapped in flannel and I hit the ground running, suddenly anointed with a new job title.  Twenty-plus years later (how the heck did that happen-- whoa slap me--)  finds me shopping for a new job description.  I am trying to  find my place in the next stage of life, as my job as a mom fades into the background.    I'm melting...  I'm melting...  

Remembrance

September 11, 2001.  a bright blue sky, brilliant sunshine.  A glorious morning to be alive!  That's exactly what I thought to myself when I headed off to work.  I was still in the driveway when the car radio reported a plane had crashed into one of the World Trace Center buildings.  With a vision of a private Cessna (did the pilot have a heart attack?) I ran back into the house to turn on the TV.  My immediate concern was for my brother-in-law, and a friend and others who worked "right there."  Is there anyone who cannot remember where you were or what you were doing on that day when the world fell apart?


     This blog's title, "no roads lead back" and the full quote (see our "How did we get here from there" page) poignantly describes in a few words,  how the world dramatically and drastically changed a decade ago.  My daughter was in the 5th grade, taking a test when news broke.  Her school's administration and teachers were all in alert/protect mode, trying to keep the news away from the children...except one of Chandler's classmates was returning from a dentist appointment, and broadcast the news to the class.  Her teacher cancelled the test and noted on each student's blank test:  "Our nation is being tested.  We are being tested.  America will pass with flying colors!"
      
     Such a heartfelt expression...a few lines of encouragement during extreme uncertainty.  How do we stay calm and reassuring for our children when we are the ones needing hugs and hand-holding?  We couldn't sleep at night, and life seemed so dark and bleak.  Ten years ago the nation mourned.  But life has amazingly continued on...and faster than we could have imagined at the time. Those eager 5th graders are now juniors in college with much ahead of them.


         This week...full of remembrances everywhere;  in the media, at a pastoral meadow in Pennsylvania, in the nation's capital outside the Pentagon, and in New York, where a city's heart was ripped out.  The Sept 11 Memorial at the site of what was once ground zero promises to be a serene, reverent place to reflect.  This week....the mornings have been touched by a delightful change in the weather; full of glorious sunshine and bright blue skies...and we carry on. 

Time Compression

It seems to be a current theme in my life...where did the time go? This week I am thinking alot about the horrors of 9/11 and wondering how it could have been ten years ago when it all seems so fresh. I remember calling my husband after the towers fell and asking that he not let our children (then 12 and 15) watch the coverage when they came home from school. Little did I know they had seen much of it live from their classrooms. The sadness of that day and the weeks that followed was unbearable. I look now at the children of the victims and feel sorrow for what they lost and what the parents lost. I saw a story of a man who got caught in an elevator at the World Trade Center and got out moments before the tower fell. He noted that it was impossible to fathom how the world had changed from the time he stepped on until the doors opened again. Life is like that...changing all the time sometimes dramatically as on 9/11 and sometimes just so slowly that you do not even notice until it is too late.

Sippy Cups

So I was tidying up and putting away the endless glasses and mugs that were in the sink and on the counter, wondering how is it that two empty nesters can generate so much dishware?  As I put the mugs away in the cupboard I had a flashback to when my kitchen cabinets were filled with plastic.  Lots of plastic, as in those colorful Tupperware tumblers with spouted lids for todders, otherwise known as sippy cups.  Remember the double-handle cups with the weighted bottoms that wouldn't tip?
That transition:  from bottle to spill-proof baby cup to a cup without a lid.  What progress!  When did those little people learn to drink out of regular cups?  It all happened without very much thought.   I can see so clearly a grinning, bright-eyed toddler with chubby hands grasping a two-handled cup and banging a high chair tray.  Now, I marvel that those same baby hands are wide and masculine, with hair on the knuckles, or slight and feminine with polish on the nails.  Those soft little hands of my wee ones now haul a suitcase halfway around the world, salute Colonels and Generals, or grasp the controls of a military airplane.  It only took a blink of an eye and those sippy cups have been replaced with big kid cups.
 But wait, adults do have sippy cups!  We just know them as travel mugs, or Starbucks coffee to go...

No roads lead back...but sometimes they do circle...

I've just sent my youngest(!) baby(!) off to school.  Junior year abroad.  Bittersweet airport farewell.  Two suitcases: 100 lbs of checked luggage for a year, and everything else she could possibly stuff into carryon without getting busted by the airline luggage police.   A road to adventure.  Meiji Gakuin University. Tokyo. Japan.  Her dormitory just so happens to be in the general location of our old neighborhood.  Our old neighborhood when we were an American  ex-pat family living in Japan...nearly 20 years ago.  What are the odds of that.  I cannot help but wonder on the weirdness/dramatic irony (if those are the right terms) of how she ended up back in Japan... She was just a bald  little babe-in-arms when we arrived in Japan and now that road has circled back.  She first spoke toddler Japanese and now she is in Japan to study  the language for real.  Her road is open and stretched out ahead of her.

This photo is one of streets in our neighborhood.  Taken a few days before we left Tokyo to return to the US....another bittersweet transition.    I had given the boys a camera to go out and snap pictures of all the familiar and ordinary sites in the neighborhood.  The painted characters  in the street  spell out ToMaRe  or STOP.    How often have we ever wished we could stop time and savor the moment?