Owning Up
…or how much to explain to one’s adult children.
SGHolland Oct 2018
Wasn’t I young? And proper? And full of promise? And he, young, and beautiful?
Then,once college and a few more years passed, I got to be a young adult
And my history became more comprehensive, even if my wisdom did not particularly grow in leaps and bounds, but just by steps and steps.
Now three of my grandchildren are young adults! Oh boy, do they still have a lot to learn! They are still hacking their way through nailing down an identity and deciding which battles to choose. The youngest of my grandchildren are contemplating their first school dance!!!!
There are plenty of years (of 365 days (+/-) each) that are lodged in memory.
Ok, I admit it, a lot of those days really have dropped into the fuzzy memory department — on purpose, or by accident.
But still, a well-sat-saddle shows shiny spots on both the topside where the rider sits, and also on the underside where the blanket goes on the horse. The blanket shows wear eventually. And so does the horse. And (although I admit I have not done research on this) I am guessing the saddle has changed its original mint condition shape some, to accommodate the horse’s special girth and back shape. No one day will do this. It takes a lot of days to wear in or wear out a saddle.
I like old leather things with marks of wear. I respect them, actually, for going the distance. It was very difficult to say goodbye to my old leather satchel from art school wherein I toted my Plastilene clay, bottle of Damar varnish, paint brushes and carving tools along with the usual note books, compact, lipstick, gum, hanky, apple or peanut butter sandwich, messy notes all mashed into the bottom. and maybe even a bathing suit, just in case.
That old satchel had a huge oil stain on the front from the oil of the clay soaking, day by day, through the rough inner layer and the shiny outer layer. So my satchel had an age spot, a very large one, on its face!
And I liked it.
(I cut that leather satchel up eventually for some worthy project that may have gone out in Christmas presents, or parts of a mobile, as I remember. Felt like a cannibal, doing that.)
My children (now celebrating 50–57ish birthdays) are trying very hard to keep the wear from showing on faces and bodies. Some are more welcoming than others of the laugh lines and the signs of un-firm flesh that hide in places that show up on photographs. Some of them don’t care much. They are too busy being themselves in other ways.
My grand-kids have told me that I don’t know much about today’s world. Then a couple years later, they have told me that I do know more than they do about the world. And one has even told me that he realizes now that he knows NOTHING! And they are very sure of what they are saying when they say it, even though “it” changes from year to year!
So it did change year to year for me — that slim young mother with toddler and newborn that posed with abandon while visiting my own grandmother very long ago.
My own children remember things about me from those years that I had conveniently forgotten. I’ve had to make amends for tizzies that left them stymied and sad, and un-deserved disciplines for things they had not done wrong. They also have owned up to me about lies they fooled me with. And truths I would rather not hear, now that it is all over and in the past.
SURPRISE! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I’m in the very unexpected place, here in 2018, with a guesstimated ten(give or take) years left to hang around this planet — this SAME PLANET where I have reconnected with a person who was there in 1956 when I graduated, but who was clearly “past history” by the time I had a husband and my total of three children and marched into the middle years of my life. While still on this SAME PLANET!
This is the guy I “went with” in high school, and with whom I scheduled a wedding a few years later. And who then found the wedding un-scheduled, due to some serious worries I had about our readiness. (No I didn’t have a new boyfriend. No, I wasn’t angry at him. I was just unsure.)
Then he went his way and I went mine.
About four weeks ago, I was checking one of my several abandoned websites to see if there was any reason to keep it. And, lo…. a comment from a name that had never never left my memory at all — that guy who went his own way, and who was reportedly happily married with a very lively and worthwhile life in the southwest USA — that guy I did not want to disturb in his chosen life.
Oh my.
I did a search. I did not find him on the internet until I found his wife’s rather recent obituary. That would explain why I was hearing right now from someone who, for reasons of respecting privacy, and respecting his own long marriage had not contacted me for the 60 years missing from our parting until now — this year.
You hear of people gathering in old folks homes and in sometimes really pretty retirement villages with people their own age, so they can have company with contemporaries while remembering past days, and old music, and funny life stories.
You do not often hear of 80 year olds finding the first love of their lives at THIS end of their lives.
Imagine two people who knew each other very very well, and respected one another and loved enough to almost get married, but who were, indeed, not yet grown-ups — far from it — and didn’t get to try a marriage while still wet behind the ears. (Anyone old enough to remember that expression?)
That boy is a fully grown up person now, with stacks of real stories to tell about his life, and so am I — like him — grown up and full of stories.
And we still have the old magic, along with the old memories. We are about to embark on our first grown-up journey together — just poking around near where I live. Later I will go to where he lives and we will poke around there, in his old haunts and his current special friends and neighbors.
I can tell you that we have no more idea what’s ahead as we continue to get old together one day at a time, than we had of what what might have been ahead of us back when we did not get married!
But we do know, by now, how to approach territory ahead — with open hearts, and curiosity, faith and trust, forgiveness, and gratitude. Think of it! We have skills now! And nothing to hide! We can talk about everything! Put our baggage out, and sort it out and set it aside. We will be traveling light.
This is better than a daydream.
Be glad for two old duffers who are lucky ducks. And well we know it.
Owning up to all our kids? They know all they need to know — but cannot be expected to understand how it is to be us, 80 years old — kids in a candy shop! Bring it on!
SGH 2018 for The Story Hall
