May

5

Adapting to the lasts

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This past weekend John and I drove to Corvallis to watch Riley compete in a track meet, we’ve seen several collegiate meets at this point and this was one of the better-run events in that everything happened on time. (I’ve been to a few where the jumps schedule seemed like a lofty and ever-shifting goal no one was particularly adhering to, a real bummer especially when the weather is crap.) Unfortunately he scratched all three of his jumps, which is to say he went over the line where you’re supposed to take off from even though in video playback it didn’t seem like he did, the triple jump is a grim bit of choreography where millimeters can fudge all the endless hours of training. Well, I guess you can say that about most sports pretty much? At any rate it was excruciating from a parents’ perspective, we don’t care if he wins or gets a certain number or anything like that, we just want him to feel good about how he performed, and of course no one wants to foul out. That is such a hard thing about watching your kid in sports! I feel like it’s so easy to celebrate successes but much harder to commiserate over the losses, and we’ve all been there. I’m so proud of this kid for working his butt off to get into a D1 track program, I’m so bummed he hasn’t had the season he was hoping for. I’m extra proud of him for continuing to apply so much discipline to his training, for not giving up, and for already planning ahead for next season.

He’s been doing great in school — his grades have been terrific, he found a part-time job, and he’s been managing a successful relationship with a lovely girl here in Eugene. The main thing I can really say about having a kid off in college is that you do get used to it, even if it doesn’t feel like you ever will when they first leave. It’s crazy what you get used to, isn’t it? I remember feeling that way during the early pandemic weeks and then months: I can’t believe what we humans just … get used to, after a while. We’re so adaptable, even in the suckiest of situations.

At first it was really weird and sad to have him come home and then leave again, and now I am pretty used to it. He does come home fairly frequently, thanks to the girlfriend, although we don’t see a lot of him when he is here. It’ll be nice to have him around for summer break, which will be here before we know it.

It’s going to be harder when Dylan leaves, because that will really mark the end of an era and will bring so many changes overall. I do think Riley was pretty ready to leave when he did, maybe because he was older than a lot of seniors, and Dylan will be less so. But who knows, one thing that never changes is how much things just keep on changing.

Dylan also has a part-time job, his first, and while he doesn’t work a lot of hours I think it’s been such a great experience for him. He was kind of dreading it, and now I think he kind of enjoys it. It sounds like there’s a lot of camaraderie, which is the main thing I remember with fondness about my early minimum-wage gigs. Standout jobs for me included working at Kinko’s, RIP, a movie theater, and a video rental store, also RIP. They paid absolute garbage wages, had lame hours, often involved being berated by the public, and I had more fun with coworkers there than I ever did at any decent job afterwards.

This is a real bittersweet stage of parenting, the season of letting go and almost-lasts. Dylan’s finishing up his junior year and then next year will be the final bit of high school for him and his last football season. I really have a sense of trying to soak up what I can, enjoy the final months of having a gangly teenager around leaving messes everywhere and available for impromptu Starbucks outings and Dairy Mart runs. It’ll be all too soon before he’s also off figuring out his next steps in life and I’ll be having to get used to a house that’s too quiet and too clean. And I will, even though it won’t feel like it at first. It’ll all keep going and changing, if we’re lucky enough.

Life is going to be really different for me in ways I can predict and some I simply can’t, and I’m just as anxious about the future as anyone else with half a brain cell, but I’m hopeful too. I so hope there are good things ahead for my boys, for me, for you.

Apr

8

At the same time

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It seems like EONS of time have passed since I last wrote here and it’s impossible to dip into any sort of context or commentary so let’s just chat about how we’re doing, okay? How are you? God, I hope you’re okay. Things are rough. Things are terrible! Things are beautiful! A dear friend of mine wrote to me about how she felt weird going to Disneyland in the midst of some turmoil, but: it’s all just happening at the same time! and that feels like my mantra for All of This: it’s all happening at the same time.

I’m feeling my way into a new stage of life with one child out of the nest, and all the new revelations that has brought. I went to the coast with Riley and his girlfriend, we all stayed in an oceanfront hotel with separate rooms and I treated them to meals and we walked on the beach, the two of them and me by myself at different times, which felt right, and we all went shopping and thrifting and laughed at the loud smelly seals together and really had a grand time. It was so nice to get to know her better and to see the side of him that is a doting boyfriend, who could have ever imagined such a thing, I would/could never have done this with my own mom and wow, what a gift to experience something so different and cool and fun. I feel so grateful for that little getaway.

I had to say goodbye to my sweet Callie cat and it was so painful and such a loss and yet it was so peaceful and loving and such a good ending for her. I’m grateful for all the years we had, even as I miss her presence. I miss her so much and I miss how we would love her together as a family, you know what I mean if you have family pets. The love you shower onto the pets is also shared love, maybe a way to show love among each other that’s easier when you’re a teenager or even grumpy-feeling spouses. I love you Callie is also I love us.

When I was on the beach I took a lot of photos and that felt good to see with a photographer’s eye, to specifically look for beauty in the way impermanent moments can line up, and I suppose I have been trying to do that in life, too. There has been so much heaviness inside and outside of my own personal life but so much goodness.

The day after Callie died I had my first hospice patient since 2020 — I have rejoined the volunteer group and am an active participant again, today I meet with some folks to discuss joining a summer camp for kids dealing with loss — and that was sad but also peaceful and a bit … holy? Yes. She was a tiny slip of a woman, still beautiful in her diminished state, and we spent several quiet hours together not talking, the TV going, her mini Yorkie dog occasionally wandering in and out of the room, the windows letting in the glowing spring sunshine, birds calling and singing outside and her dying, me dying too but somewhere behind her, all of it unknown, unknowable. It felt holy. I was there to relieve her caretaking daughter but it felt like a gift to me rather than the reverse, a reminder of how every speck of time has meaning. We’re here until we’re not.

Later that very same day someone at the barn brought cows in to introduce to the horses and I was able to ride Little Joe like a real goddamned cowgirl, trotting behind a herd. Just in an arena, just with young easily-moved cows, but gosh. Holy shit. Me and some other ladies, riding like that. What an absolute thrill. Something I could never have pictured myself doing.

My future feels so wide open these days, uncertain and kind of scary at times, but full of promise, too. The promise that life keeps delivering change, over and over. Nothing stays, and that is the sweet hell of it. Nothing stays and the weather keeps changing. I feel ready for it all. The rain, the sun, the biting cold wind and the warm soft breeze. I feel like I’m finally in step with the movements of life, not at all sure where it will lead but no longer dragging against the flow.

It’s all happening, at the same time.

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