Sometimes you raise kids and you feel like you’re killing it. That doesn’t happen very often.
More likely to ensue, are multiple interactions taking place every 7 seconds, fraught with impending uncertainty.
Parenting young adults has been, by far, the most challenging part of my “career”. You are left to witness people who can vote in elections, making decisions, and you cannot save them from themselves!
This leaves you, their parent, with a swirl storm of thoughts, playing on repeat. It resembles trying to get to the next episode on Netflix of your favorite show, except someone else is watching the same show, and you keep being cued to an episode you have previously seen.
Yeah, like that. You watch your kids, thinking...
For the love of God, please choose differently (ANYthing but THAT)...
which then leads to...
I guess you’ll figure it out..
which almost always ends with…
WHY are you so much like me?
When you have a gaggle of younger kids, friends join in like the delicious part of the Chex mix that is given out only at Christmas time. Because when you have 5 kids yourself, adding 3-5 extras is like priming the pump.
These littles intertwine with yours, becoming part of the moving amoeba of humans that have now become your life. These friends end up at your dinner table for pizza night, slathered with sunscreen at the beach while eating sandy peanut butter and jelly, or sleeping under the stars in a tent while camping in the redwoods, while being eaten alive by mosquitos. Trips like this leave them with their own tales of the racoon who was RIGHT outside the door, the kid who had to pee in the middle of the night, or that one time it started to rain and the kids forgot to put the cover on the tent.
Good times.
It was simple then. Easier. At least, in hindsight, this is what I tell myself. Although physically exhausted, mentally I was still intact.
Actually, who am I kidding?
As time marches on, friendships start to shift. The old kiddos that were once staples in our home, began to change like fixtures during a re-model. No one really knows why. It just is.
So when a little that I had known since Kinder, but hadn’t seen since 7th grade, reconnected with my kid recently, it was like a breath of fresh air. I took her in, remembering the innocence and chubby cheeks of her little days, now filled into becoming a young woman. “Ah, look at you, so grown up. Coming into your own.”
What happened next, blew my mind. This little, now big, (let’s call her: LNB), proceeded to wrangle my offspring to Safeway where they purchased all the ingredients to make us dinner.
You read that right. THE KIDS COOKED DINNER FOR THE GROWN PEOPLE WHO BARELY KEPT THEM ALIVE DURING CHILDHOOD.
We gathered around the table, each with a plate of delicious goodness. I couldn’t even really tell you what the meal was...it didn’t matter.
What did matter was this: 7 humans, seated at the same table during a Global Pandemic, filled with love and gratitude for a simple meal being shared together.
My tummy full, my heart bursting, I give thanks for every. Single. Part. Of. It.
*This moment was proudly brought to you by the ClusterF known as Covid.