The Right Questions

Photo credit: Pixabay

Tuesday morning I woke up early to a running tape in my mind of all the things that needed to get done. My son’s high school graduation was that afternoon. Four of my son’s closest friends and their families were coming over for dinner, dessert, and drinks in the backyard after graduation - which doesn’t sound like a lot of people, but was actually twenty-five. It was my daughter’s second-to-last day of ninth grade. We’re leaving for my Portugal retreat in less than a week. I have to write three essays and record three podcasts and film three yoga classes before we go. I didn’t need coffee to feel fully awake, it turns out anxiety works as well as caffeine. It doesn’t taste as good, though, so I went to the kitchen and ground the beans and steamed the oat milk and unloaded the dishwasher. Those are always my first tasks of the day. My son was sleeping since he didn’t have to be at school until an hour before graduation. My daughter was up and about. When she came into the kitchen, I assaulted her with questions:

Me: You have your teacher gift cards, right?

Daughter: Yes.

Me: And you addressed and signed them?

Daughter: Yes.

Me: And you only need a snack today, no lunch because you’re out early?

Daughter: Yes.

Me: And you can write a nice note for your brother for graduation sometime this morning?

Daughter: Yes.

Me: Okay. Did you sleep well? You good? Are you stressed?

Daughter: No, you are.

Sometimes it’s annoying that I've raised such insightful kids. Once, years ago I asked my son why he was so stubborn and without missing a beat he said, “Because you are.” He was eleven and he wasn’t wrong, I can be very stubborn. My daughter wasn’t wrong, either. I was doing that thing you can do sometimes, when you’re cold and ask someone else if they want a sweater. That’s not just me, right? I chuckled when my daughter said that, and thankfully she didn’t let my rush of stress affect her mood. She just called me out and got ready to go. I hugged her and kissed her cheek on the way out the door as I always do. I have three years until she’s in the graduating class, and I know they’re going to fly by. 

The thing is, for the better part of the last eighteen years, the tape running in my head all the time is a tape for three people - me and my two kids. It’s been full of things like who needs a permission slip signed, who needs a birthday gift for a friend’s party this weekend, who has a group project they’re working on for school and why do we have to get this one specific kind of poster board and why did no one say that until the night before, who has a test coming up, who needs new pants (shoes, tops) because they’ve had a growth spurt, who has a sudden fever that requires the entire schedule to go out the window? 

And then of course there’s been my own stuff which has changed in tone and needs as often as you’d expect - things like: when can I get the grocery shopping done, is there time to get my hair cut, when can I throw my mat down and get a practice in, how am I supposed to run a business, write, and have a full-time teaching schedule on no sleep, is my marriage going to survive, how do I wean my son now that I’m pregnant with my daughter, how do I manage an infant, toddler and new business, how do I get through a divorce while taking care of two kids and being in business with my ex, how do I find time to meditate, how do I fall apart and hold everything together at the same time, how do I create joy and security for my kids, is it possible for me to cut my own hair, how do I find time to write, how do I find time to eat, how do I find time to sleep, how do I find time to meet a friend for coffee, and then later - what even is post-divorce dating, why do dating apps suck so much, why would I pay a sitter to be with my awesome kids so I can meet some guy who will not shut up about himself, or thinks I would jump on the back of his Harley to drive up the coast for lunch like I’ve never seen Dateline, when do I introduce my kids to someone, what would it look like if I got married again, can I learn everything I need to know to run the business on my own, why can’t my mom just not say anything about my short hair if she hates it so much, why do perimenopause and puberty begin at the same time, how can I be in four places at once, how are we living through a pandemic, how can I be there for my mother and still take care of myself and my kids, how much care and concern do I owe my dad, and how much of life is making sure you’re asking yourself the right questions? 

For example: What would my life look like if I took a hard left turn and made a choice no one saw coming, least of all me?

Last Friday after my son picked up his cap and gown, we went to his elementary school. It’s a tradition - the graduating class goes back to see their old teachers and walk their old campus from several feet up, and the little elementary school kids line the walkways and hold up signs and clap for the seniors in their caps and gowns. My son was clapping for the seniors not that long ago, or at least that’s how it feels. The whole thing did me in - that feeling when your heart has moved a little higher up in your chest and is beating a little harder, and all the colors and sounds seem a little brighter - it was so beautiful and touching, and so thoroughly impossible not to have an endless stream of tears running down my face. I gave up trying to stop it since my kid thought it was cute and not annoying or embarrassing. I saw a bunch of the moms I used to see every day at drop-off and pick-up, many of whom I’ve lost touch with during middle and high school, because we don’t do drop-offs and pick-ups anymore and our kids don’t need that ongoing text chat we used to have about which one forgot his homework and could someone please text it, or hey, when does vacation start again and is today a shorter day, and can someone pick up my kid from school later because I have to take my other kid to the doctor, and are all the kids doing this insane science project that requires an engineering degree, and does anyone have an extra copy of the book the kids were supposed to have finished last week and - you get the idea. 

It was good to see everyone. A group of us had lunch after, a lot of the kids I’ve watched grow up since second grade at one table, moms at the other. Somewhere along the way we started talking about perimenopause, aging parents, loss and grief, where everyone’s kids were heading to college and which kids were taking gap years, and what life was going to look like when all the kids were “launched.” All of us have graduating seniors, but some of us have younger kids coming up behind them like I do, and some older, already out in the world. Regardless, all of us are looking at “empty nest syndrome” soon, which comes after “the sandwich generation” - and wondering what it’s going to look like and feel like when all the kids are no longer living at home full-time. What goes on the running tape in your head when two out of three of the people you’ve been keeping track of for years, are taking over their own internal running tapes? Which is not to say that my running tape won’t quite obviously include my children once they move out, it’s just that they won’t be needing me to figure out when to throw in a load of laundry for them, or whether they need to buy a new pair of pants, or if they can say yes to this party and still get their work done. They’ll be handling the daily minutiae and their own schedules without my Type A help.

There was a strange feeling of what’s next at the moms’ table that I don’t think many of us were expecting. In our culture, we devalue women once they’re beyond child-bearing years - though I do think that’s starting to change - so there’s been a dearth of mainstream conversation about this phase in life. It’s another one of those transitions that you don’t see coming until they’re on the horizon and affecting the waters you’re swimming in. You hear “sandwich generation” in snippets of conversations at other tables when you’re out to lunch in your thirties, or you see the words in an article you’re reading but they don’t really land. Then the current starts to pull you in a slightly different direction, the weather changes almost imperceptibly, one of your parents starts to decline, then the other, you’re needed on the opposite coast, feelings from your own childhood rise to the surface, your kids need you at home, you feel pulled in eighteen different directions, and then you understand this is what people were talking about, and too bad I didn’t pay more attention. I’m paying attention now. It’s a wild time, a time when you’re called to not know, to swim in uncertainty, to keep your hands and your heart open. It’s the Third Act conversation whatever your gender, whether you have kids or you don’t. At least one of the right questions is:

I know myself now and I have so much life to live, what will I do with all this hard-earned wisdom and inspiration?

In September I’ll drive my firstborn to college and help him get settled, and at a certain point I’ll have to get in the car and drive away. That will be the task in front of me, the thing I need to do as his mom, plus the school will make me. What I’ll be driving toward is something I can’t envision yet, something I’ll only be able to feel and understand when I get there. What he’s heading into is also unknown, something he will figure out and create as he goes. I know he’s going to make something beautiful the way I know the sun will come up in the morning. Sometimes the biggest expression of love is having the strength to get in the car and trust that your kid can handle the unknown, and so can you. Sometimes the best way to support the people we love is to have the faith that eventually, they will ask themselves the right questions, and so will we.

If you’d like to meet me in real time to talk about swimming in the unknown and asking yourself the right questions, I’ll be here 6/14/24 at 11:15am PST, or you can wait for the Come As You Are podcast version. Thank you for being here.