Monday was my father’s birthday. My husband asked him how old he was now, and when he answered, I have to admit I was surprised. Maybe more than surprised. I was a little shocked. Even though I am well into adulthood, I still do that thing that children do when it comes to their parents and age and I sort of blur them in my mind: I don’t focus on the small lines on their faces, or the way their skin or hairlines have changed. To me, they are still in their early 50s. Except they are not.
When I heard my dad’s age I balked, because my mom is a year older than he is. “But that means Mom is…” I started, and my dad laughed. “Thirty-nine!” he answered. Except she’s not, because as I reminded him (and I think this shocked him a little), 39 is how old I will be at my next birthday this summer.
I left my home state for college when my parents were in their mid-40s. When I returned with my young family, they were almost 60. I am now realizing how much of them I missed. Sometime in the past ten years, they aged. They get senior discounts now when we go to theme parks and movies. They are still busy, working, active jet-setters, don’t get me wrong. But they aren’t the same.
When my children are at school and the phone rings and I see the school’s name in the caller ID, without fail, my heart stops beating until the voice on the other end of the line assures me that my kids are okay. I can’t help it. The fear came along with the the role of mother to school-age children, special subset: boy mom. I will admit to something further, though: any time the phone rings after 8 PM and the caller ID says my parents’ phone number, my heart stops too.
At lunch with my friends, we don’t just talk about our kids and their schools and our travel plans for spring break anymore. We talk about our parents. We talk about their health — the cancer diagnoses, the onset of dementia, the worry we have about their driving or their finances. We talk about health insurance. We talk about estate planning. The truth is that I am 38 years old, and I lose sleep at night worrying about both my children and my parents. I’m in the middle, and I no longer find it a mystery that my peers and I need so much anti-anxiety medication and therapy. There is a lot to be anxious about in the middle.
When I am around my parents, I still don’t really feel like a grown-up. I feel like a teenager — admittedly, a teenager with a whole bunch of children who call her “Mommy,” but a teenager. I still regard my parents as the grown-ups, even though I am decidedly an adult. I grew up with so many things to look forward to and to work toward, and at this moment in my life, it feels like I have done most of them: I have graduated from college, worked and had career(s), married, had babies and more babies. I’ve bought and sold houses and traveled and volunteered and slowly checked off box after box on my life’s to-do list. I have so much, both literally and figuratively, but now it feels like I am moving into a stage of life that will start to be defined by loss — my babies will grow up, my body will change and probably not for the better, and my parents will age even more. I feel like the things I hold most dear are starting to slip through my fingers like so many grains of sand. Is this what is called mid-life? Am I due for a crisis?
At the heart of this angst is the fact that I am very blessed and lucky to have so much that I love in my life, including a set of grandparents of my own. But along with these blessings is the inevitability of loss, and I have a lot to lose. As I move through my days, trying my very best to figure out what I am doing in this whole parenting enterprise and feeling often like I am failing miserably, I also have worry sitting heavily on my shoulders. I’m waiting for a shoe to drop. I’m waiting for my heart to break.
My parents are the ones who introduced me to a love of music, and my father loves Fleetwood Mac. So often now I have lyrics running through my head…
Oh mirror in the sky,
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I’m getting older, too.
My people big and small are getting older, and I’m getting older, too. And it does, in fact, feel like the ground beneath me is sliding right out from under me in many ways.
Love that song. My dad and I danced to it for the father-daughter dance at my wedding. I still can’t hear it without getting a little teary.
I too think about this a lot. My grandmother will be 90 this year, and I recently asked her how old she really feels. She said “Oh, I still think I’m 22 sometimes – still a kid with my whole life in front of me…and then I look in the mirror, scare the shit out of myself, and wonder what the fuck happened to my face.” I hope she lives to be 110.
xo
The seasons of your life change, and the people get older… But along with the losses come new people and experiences. Our children grow up, graduate from college, have careers, get married, have babies — just like you did. You become the older parents that your children will worry about and take care of. But you also become in-laws with new sons- and daughters-in-law to welcome into your family, and you become grandparents with beautiful new babies to love. And life keeps on going. Maybe I see it more like a spiral that goes around and around, up and up.
I hope so, Kazuko!
Allison, I love this. One of my close friends just heard she has to put her father in hospice. He has a brain tumor, and the complications are so great that he can no longer live at home. That sense of loss and heartbreak is overwhelming for her right now. I know I will eventually go through it as well. And I’m at a loss for words when I talk to her. Trying to show support, struggling to word it properly, wanting to let her know how unfair I think it is.
I feel the exact same way you do…like I’m a teenager around my parents. Sometimes I even say “Um, Mom, can I borrow $10?” and that makes me feel like a teenage tool.
In the middle is exactly right.
Yep, yep, yep. Pass the Xanax please.
I’ve learned to embrace the notion that having so much to lose is the biggest gift of all.
First of all, because I am me, I should let you know that Landslide (Dixie Chicks version, natch) is my ringtone for he in-laws. Secondly, I should note that hubs lost his last grandparent this week, and my last is in an assisted living due to a recent fall. Finally, the phone calls…I get that for sure. I’ve trained everyone at the school to start phone conversations with “everything is fine.”
Lovely piece.
Beautiful. You so eloquently captured this age, this stage in life in which we work to find new things to look forward to as we try not to be too overwhelmed by what we know we will eventually lose. I lost my father at age 66 when I was only 35, so I know that the most devastating life changes are things we don’t see coming and that our world can be turned upside down in an instant, but this second half of life seems to be so much about finding our footing and trying to feel settled as we realize that. A truly beautiful post about this middle part of life.
First of all, I think of you every time I hear Fix You and I hope you will do that with me now when you hear Landslide, since it is probably my favorite song. I’ve written about it and its lyrics more than once (ages ago) on my blog. I just can’t stop hearing those words those lyrics, it speaks to me, about my fear of change, my resistance, how very, very attached (and un-Buddhist) I am to those I love. Beautiful. But the thing with our parents’ ages surprising us: Yes. My dad will be 70 in June and I just can’t get my head around it. I remember his 40th birthday party, in the back yard of my parents’ house, when she gave him a windsurfer and I ran around with my sister, like it was yesterday. I realized a few years ago that when there was something heavy to carry I took it, rather than automatically giving it to my Dad. I worry every time the phone rings with either of their numbers. Oh, this whole topic makes me well up with tears. Two summers ago my mother was in the hospital for a month with an injury and it rearranged my whole life, since I went to see her every day. One evening Grace was mad at me, crying hard, insisting that I wasn’t spending enough time with her because I was with my mother too much. I just started at her, agape, feeling my chest pull in two directions that I can’t possibly tend at the same time. This is it: the middle place. xox
In the middle with one hand reaching back and one hand being pulled forward. Wonderful piece.
Love this song, and I have thought about the lyrics alot over the years. I love you interpretation. Love it.
ARE YOU SERIOUS???? Heads up on the tearjerkers, meanyhead! (And I say that affectionately.) These are the things that keep me up at night, and that song is one of a handful that I have to change the moment I hear it (I can provide a full list at your request.)
Wow… really well said.
What an unbelieveably poignant post. And I get it… that middle feeling where no matter where you look, either up or down, change is all around. And that song… oh, that song… something about being born in the 70s means that your childhood is filled with the sound of Fleetwood Mac, right? It actually makes me think of the mountain in Vermont where my Dad wants to have his ashes scattered. But hopefully not for a very, very long time. Embrace today. Your life is so very full with so many wonderful things, not the least of which is your writing and ability to touch others. Thanks.
Right there w you as I sat in the surgical waiting room this morning, waiting for my mom. Thanks for the reassurance my feelings are normal.
This is so lovely, so exquisite. You plumb the common threads of our collective emotion, and you do it well.
That particular line from Landslide slices open my heart each and every time I hear it. Reading it here only compounded that emotion.
The middle place indeed. Zits and wrinkles. Children and aging parents. Life.
xo
It amazes me how often you write how I feel 🙂 This whole mommy thing has really left me with more anxiety and fear over losing both my new little family and my parents than I have ever experienced before. I guess I just didn’t used to think about it – but now, I think about it all the time. We’ve lost Dad and my husband’s father is terminal; so the reality is definitely there….yet, somehow I fear a sudden traumatic loss most days ……but I push it to the back of my mind and carry on…..but yes this reality remains and these song lyrics haunt me as well 🙂
Beautifully put. I’m also 38, right in the middle. It’s really hard to admit that your parents aren’t superpeople, even at this age.
Again I am *so* glad I found your blog. Had been craving beautiful writing in the blogosphere.
Its an amazing story, and its a fantastic song. I can relate to it in its entirety. Its amazing how we get locked in time but it keeps moving and we don’t realize. Enough said, thankyou for the thought, and the memory. I guess we all need to stop and smell the roses. Thankyou and godbless…….. Tommy D
Accepting our parents getting older has got to be one of the hardest things to do, ever. My mom recently said she didn’t “expect” to live past 92, because when they were calculating retirement funds, the accountant seemed to stop there (I quickly corrected/reminded her that 90 is the new 75!) But it completely freaked me out to think about her life so FINITELY like that. But then, I’m lucky she’s here now. I guess we should all (try) to focus on that. xox
I totally relate to this. How are my parents almost 70. Very scary. Especially given that I don’t get along with one of my siblings… I hope we reconcile soon before fate pushes us together.
Oh my goodness I can not even deal with that song. It gets me teary every time.
It is so hard, to think of our mortality as parents ourselves now and the reality of the mortality of our own parents.
For me, I have already done that part, the loss of a parent, because my dad died when I was 18. Talk about life not going according to plan.
I am so thankful to still have my mom and can not even allow myself to imagine the pain of losing her or the pain of my son losing me yet. I hope there are still many more years before either.