There are things I find that I can not explain to my kids. I can not explain how I woke up almost 50 years old.
I swear to you just yesterday I was in high school. I was desperately trying to figure out how to keep my head above water and out of trouble. College is a blur and their childhood - a short dream sequence.
How so I explain something I still do not understand myself? Is it really my job to teach my kids about life? Or are they here to teach me? Because there are days I know they are doing better than I am.
When did I get this old.....when did I become the "parent"? Watching my parents age does make growing up any easier. In fact the exact opposite. I used to say I wouldn't go back to high school for all the tea in china. (I don't know if tea comes from china or that was just another racist thing my grandparents said.) I would go back now if it meant that we could all go back.
It's not the lack of responsibility that I'm after, although that is a draw, it's not youth - oh to have my own boobs back though. It's people. Grandma, Ma-ma, Aunt Leona, Mom. Maybe I am naive', maybe it's the naivete'! One of grandma's saying that wasn't politically in correct was, "Youth is wasted on the young." (I know it wasn't her saying, I'm just saying, oh you know what I'm saying)
50 is old when you are 16. You look at those people and think OMG they are sooooo old. How so they get out of bed? What is left of their life? Shouldn't they be getting ready to die? And then you wake up almost 50 with two teenagers wondering how you got here. It all starts to speed up after 30 like someone hit the Fast Forward button. Or for my kids when you are finally reading this in 2055 - that was like when you would Skip the ad's to get to your video on YouTube. Hahaha. Remember that? Good Old days.
I know now that I won't get this time back - these moments and I think of all the moments that I spent doing nothing. Sleeping, worrying, watching TV, sitting on the couch in the corner talking on the phone because the phone was connected to the wall!! I ask my kids to come hang out in the kitchen while I'm making dinner, Come talk to me, keep me company. My grandmother's words come out of my mouth. Or I ask them to pick up the clothes that were washed and folded for them, Because someday you will miss that and I hear my mother. And I miss her so much my heart hurts.
Watching dementia steal my mother away, the one that I grew up with, the one that took me 35 years to understand is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Youth isn't wasted on the young, we just don't know what it is until we hit 40. We don't really understand half the stuff that old farts told us until then!! Is anyone else still figuring out -You can't see the forest for the trees - what the hell does that mean?
Youth isn't wasted, time is wasted. All the time we spend fretting, worrying, overthinking, judging mostly ourselves. Then we get old and we know the value of time but we spend even more time fretting about our kids, worrying how they will end up, overthinking - everything, and judging mostly others but still ourselves.
All I asked my family for this year for Christmas was time. Let's spend some time together. Just hang out. Let's make some memories that I can hold onto before it all starts to slip away. Because I'm watching someone else I love slip away, and it's killing me. When that day comes all I have are memories, moments. All you will have are these moments.
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