the only constant

What if you knew something was going to happen that was going to change your life completely?

You didn’t know what it was or when it would happen. 

You just knew that it was coming.

What would you do? What would you want to have done, later on? What would be the best thing you could do with your life in its current configuration?

As life goes on, those questions seem central to the experience of being human. We do know some big things are headed our way, and we have to decide how to face or evade them. 

And meanwhile, in our current states of unrecognized bounty, we need to decide how to use the many gifts we’ve been given.

I feel blessed that I had  a stepson before I had children of my own. One thing he taught me is that children grow up fast. They don’t linger at either the delightful or annoying phases. They move forward, and we’re often left in their wake, holding last year’s solution, and scratching our heads at the changes.

All the years of my parenting, some part of me recognized that childhood is transient, that my children would be children for only a short time, that how I spent these precious years of their lives mattered.

So they’re grown and suddenly it seems like I have plenty of time. Age and infirmity seem like distant threats, and the current reality stretches out luxuriously around me.

I needed a break maybe. Time to recharge my batteries. Time to consolidate what I’ve learned. Time to tilt against some windmills. Time to figure out how it feels to live mostly in my own skin, and not through the extensions of myself that my children became.

The day before my youngest turned 18, I had to sign a permission form for a dental procedure. As I signed, I realized that I’d soon be responsible only for myself. For decades, I’d had minor children. Suddenly, it was just me.

Just me still in a family and marriage, but just me nonetheless. I no longer had to consider the welfare of another human being 24/7. I no longer needed to make sure that all the cracks were filled and the bases covered.