Riding the waves
Posted on | September 13, 2006 | 15 Comments
It’s so funny hanging out with six year olds all day. We read a book about spiders and learn that the babies fly away on silken threads soon after they are hatched.
“Cool,” one little boy says. “It would be SO FUN to fly away and not have any parents. We could do ANYTHING.”
“Like what?” I want to know. Watching a grin spread wide across his freckled face.
“Like STAY UP ALL NIGHT!” he says emphatically, waving his arms about at the possibility.
The magic of that idealized independence hovers in the air.
“Yeah, and we could eat candy for every single meal,” another boy chimes in.
I remember that time, before grown up. That time when days sometimes felt like years. When yesterday was so far off it hardly mattered. Now grown-upness saturates the air around me like a heady perfume: replacing the oxygyn of whimsy with the dioxide of worry.
Maybe I’ve been feeling this now more than ever because death has pressed close up against the periphery of my life, or maybe it is simply because I’m in my late twenties—and this is the time when most young people invariably start feeling old.
Talking with my sister on the phone the other night, we agreed, when we were eighteen we knew it all. At least that’s how it felt for me. I was at the top of my game at eighteen: ballsy, headstrong, self confidant, and completely invincible. I wrote reams of poetry, jotted pensive philosophical notes in the margins of my books, read Shakespeare and Whitman, and regularly skinny dipped in the ocean. I knew everything then. I’d take up conversation with anyone. No argument was too complex, no social challenge too awkward. I attempted almost anything: rock climbing 1000 feet above the Mediterranean, sleeping with men I barely knew, volunteering in an HIV positive community in Harlem, jumping from fifty feet into an abandoned marble quarry filled with still green water. I had nothing to loose.
Now, ten years later, I am humbled. My heart each day feels the breathless immense weight of Love. Now there is everything to loose.
It seems like instead of seeking challenge like I did then, challenge finds me. The sum of my experiences, like a few small crusts of bread in my pockets, do nothing to feed the hunger of the beasts I now face. Over and over I find my words come up short; my hands empty. Then it was all about pushing the envelope: how wild could I be?
Now it is about other, fiercer, more tender things.
Navigating the terrain of love, seven years in (this month, our anniversary); making new meaning in the context of near death; finding words to express even a small sliver of the immense protective love that comes with motherhood.
I wouldn’t go back. I love the challenge of now: the tender grace of meeting someone’s needs unconditionally, the fierce affection that comes with having woken up day after day after day next to the same man, or the ease that comes with starting out again, for the fifth year, with a class of children. But some days, especially the long ones, when my heart feels worn and scattered like a handful of sea glass, I get nostalgic for that time before DH, before Bean, before a career. It would be nice now and again to feel that rock-solid certainty that comes with inexperience.
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15 Responses to “Riding the waves”
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I am Christina Rosalie
Hello. I'm so happy you've stopped by!
I am a multimedia storyteller, digital strategist, idea starter, stalker of wonder, finder of four leaf clovers, MFA graduate student, and mama of boys. My first book,
will be published by SKIRT! Books in September, 2012.
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September 13th, 2006 @ 9:52 pm
Goodness! I love the way you write!
Sometimes I watch my children and wish life was truly as simple as it seems to them. But I know it will never be that way.
September 13th, 2006 @ 11:24 pm
You write like someone who is wise beyond your years… “It seems like instead of seeking challenge like I did then, challenge finds me” – Wow, that touched me.
September 14th, 2006 @ 3:52 am
Every time I realize how young you actually are, it blows me away. You are definitely wise beyond your years
But not wise beyond your experience. Thank you for always writing what I’m thinking. (it’s eerie, it is!)
September 14th, 2006 @ 4:14 am
Wow, the things you did when you were “young” and fancy-free make me feel a bit like I’m sitting here doing nothing! There must only be 4 or 5 years between us. Maybe I am doing things though, my own things, and it’s just that some of what you mentioned appealed too. Something for me to think about!
September 14th, 2006 @ 7:15 am
I can completely relate, especially about challenge finding you, instead of the other way around. Your writing is moving and eloquent as always…
September 14th, 2006 @ 10:03 am
as someone who is turning 30 in 39 days you have moved me to realize what a transition i am in. although i am excited to move forward and the many women i meet in their thirties excite me to the possibilities of what is to come for me, your post made me want to look back in time for a moment. to look back and think about who i was and where i’ve been. you live hard and that inspires me to do the same. i am very drawn to your writing style and am thankful that you share your thoughts with the world.
September 14th, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Your searching is full of beauty – it outweighs the terror, I promise. It was fun when I felt like I knew everything, but I also always felt overwhelmed by the things I didn’t know, the slate of experiences in front of me. (College, marriage, oh the pressure! What if I did everything wrong, what if I followed the wrong path, constant worry.) I look back and think, what a baby I was! And how grateful that I now realize that my path is my own, and it’s never wrong – I can always turn around or make a U turn.
But yes, life was very sweet before the burdens of responsible adulthood!
September 14th, 2006 @ 1:33 pm
Don’t loose that spirit! Peter Pan is still my hero (I won’t ever grow up) even though my body clock has turned almost twice what yours has. It is the spirit that keeps us alive.
With experience, the spirit can maintain a proper place within us so we can make sense of and enjoy each day as it progresses. Listening and talking to the spirit helps to express yourself as you so wonderfully do.
September 14th, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
Ugh. Couldn’t have expressed it better myself. It’s so true. And something that I’ve been noticing lately. When I was 18 I was completely confident in everything, and imagined that life would only get better with age. My mid-twenties would be a blast. They have been for the most part, but something about turning 25 (next week) makes me feel not ready. Or somewhat disappointed because I feel so much less confident, especially in comparison to how I imagined I would feel.
I love the picture of you and Bean.
September 14th, 2006 @ 3:10 pm
i know i feel this too–that tension between my life before and my life now and all that i still want to come
September 14th, 2006 @ 4:59 pm
Beautifully written, and oh how I relate.
“…replacing the oxygen of whimsy with the dioxide of worry…” Brilliant!
September 15th, 2006 @ 8:46 am
Imagine, now, experiencing the thrill of 18 through Bean…
but just for a moment, as it leaves one weak kneed – and you have so much time.
That naive freedom is so far from me now that I can only remember it through my children.
September 17th, 2006 @ 2:14 am
when i was in my late 20s (which was not very many years ago) i started to feel old – older than i should have felt. i wanted my confidence of my younger years back, as you so perfectly describe in this post. i was feeling the weight, the burdens, the seriousness of life. i also knew i had much to lose. my husband was diagnosed with melanoma at the age of 27 and having lost my father when i was younger, i knew it could all be over in a second and i began to take very calculated steps. i felt the preciousnes of life so acutely, that i began to protect myself and those around me to the point of feeling like i wasn’t living freely anymore. i essentially lost myself to the momentum of trying to keep some control. it’s such a balance, isn’t it? of trying to appreciate all that you have, but living life without the illusion of control, without holding back because of what we have to lose. because the older we get, the more we have to lose, and the harder it is to keep living fiercely. once i made it to 29, and 30, my perspective shifted. i let the control leap out of my heart and i noticed i began to feel confident and youthful again. and now, at 31 (and a half), i feel younger than i felt in my entire 20s. no more analyzing and re-evaluating every single experience. instead, i’m just living and lovin it. i shouldn’t ramble. but your thoughts struck me as i found myself in them. you, you are a beautiful and wise writer.
September 18th, 2006 @ 11:31 pm
i simply adored this post ~ it made me dream a little.
September 20th, 2006 @ 2:56 am
wow!!