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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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1:56 p.m. - 2012-05-31
A little more on yesterday's post. As Deb pointed out, there's a bit of difference whether you're a 5'3" mom or you're a 5'11" mom like me. See when you're a shorter mom your sons' transitions are spread out a little. First they get taller than you somewhere during middle school and then after you're used to the weirdness of being physically shorter than someone you gave birth to then the voice breaks, the zits start, the B.O., etc, etc. But with me? When you top me it's a slam-bang crazy speed ride to being all grown up. After passing this mom's 5'11" there's being a 6-footer and suddenly the sons are hairy and basso voiced and entitled to driver's licenses, girlfriends, draft cards, and they go away to college. And it happens in a nanosecond. As long as I could kiss the top of my boys' heads they were still my little guys. Children. They still fit on my lap and I could sort of gloss over the deepening voices and the pimples and the Playboy centerfold tacked onto the bedroom wall where the Pok�mon poster used to be. Shorter than I am sons believe in Santa Claus and can't go to R-rated movies. Taller than me sons are finished products. They're all grown up. Taller than me sons go away.......and they never come back. I know Wolf is not his brother. I know that. I know I am not the overwhelmed other-directed miserable mess I was when Alex made the move from little guy to grown man. I know this time I'm not missing the clues and cues and idiotically believing everything was fine when in truth my kid is loathing me and gagging to get away. I know all this, okay? But on Tuesday when Wolf sidled up to me in the kitchen and I couldn't see the top of his head I couldn't prevent the sick lurch in my stomach, the frightened squeeze on my heart, the sudden swamp of pained superstitious dread, the immediate panic that it's almost over. It was a fist smashed into my face. I couldn't stop my limbs from going numb or ignore how the world suddenly tilted beneath my feet. Suddenly I knew my time as a mom is nearly over and that this son too will go away and not ever come back. And then not only will I be without the two brand new human beings I made inside my body, carried under my heart and loved so, so much, I'll have to finally face down the knowledge I've spent 32 years doing the one thing I'd ever wanted to do and be good at and that I'd failed. Fucked it up entirely. Not only don't I get a gold watch and a pension, I won't even know where they are, how they're doing, or when (if) I have grandchildren. Pasted flat by the karma bus and it's only now after 28 years on my fool's journey do I finally hear it coming. I had a funny story about my adventures at the Verizon store to tell you, but humor is escaping me at the moment
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