Growing Pains...

Growing pains.... DEEP sigh here.  I suppose it’s a good thing that they continue.  Feeling them means I’m still growing and learning, In my youth I  foolishly thought there would come a time when they would cease though.  Mother daughter relationships are often complicated. I like to blame the complication on a “double dose” of estrogen in the same house!  I am the mother of an almost 20 year old adult woman.  I sometimes have trouble remembering that. Not that I’m a mother but that she is now an adult.  It seems the past week or so has been another episode of growing pains in our relationship.

When things like responsibility and nurturing were being handed out I got in line twice. FOR BOTH of them!  I’m almost always responsible, excessively and boringly so. And I mother everyone and everything that comes my way. And as a mother I’m used to doing both with my children.  I KNOW what is best for them, even if I don’t know or do what is best for me.  I can see just what they should do, HOW they should do and when they should do it. I’ve been a single parent since my daughter was 7 years old and I  went into overdrive when that happened trying to be ALL she needed, overcompensating for what she no longer had.  I think I did a fine job of  providing for her, of encouraging her to grow and mature and develop the coping skills she would need as an adult. And she is doing just fine.  So what is the problem?

I sometimes find myself trying to mother her as though she were still 7 and a frightened little girl whose world was totally torn asunder.  She is a remarkable young woman. She is bright, compassionate, highly motivated to succeed and quite responsible in her own right.  She is all I could ask for in a daughter.  She normally handles my overprotectiveness calmly and rationally ( if at times slightly condescendingly, which is normal for a 20 year with her mother:-)  

This week I totally overreacted to something she did. Twice. The first instance she did something I asked. Without a single complaint and because she knew I was working and did not have time. She did it the way she had been taught. And I became upset because this time I would have done it differently. And I expected her to KNOW what I wanted without communicating it to her.  The fault was solely mine. I blamed her for something that was MY fault.  She looked at me first as though I was absolutely nuts and then she listened to my tirade without response. But I could see by  the look on her face that my words hurt her. That in turn hurt me. I sincerely apologized and then I cried.

My second offense was making a derogatory comment to her about the way she was dressed.  I opened my mouth and the words came out, in a way that I was mortified to hear. She is a beautiful woman, who always dresses well.  She is surprisingly modest in a time when showing it all is the norm.  She is the exception. This time she went into her room and closed me out.  

Parenting is never easy but learning to be a friend and gaining a friend in return is my goal at this point.  I have done my job as her parent and done it very well. I will always be her mother and she my daughter but she is an adult. She is good woman. I need to remember that!

Edge of the World

Edge of the World

The rich golden yellow is so distinctive that even now

my heart leaps in anticipation when I see one

curious to know what adventures lie inside.

It first arrived the summer I was eight.

Mrs. Conner who taught me in third grade

said I was  precocious and my mind needed

extra stimulation and so it came in the mail.

I remember Mama placing it in my hand

the glow of bright sunshine winking at me

 underneath the coarse brown paper sleeve.

I brought it to my face,

 the sharp smell of ink and expensive thick shiny paper

tickling my nose and making my fingers itch.

I carefully unwrapped it folding the brown sleeve aside

exposing the mysteries underneath.

The cover teased me,

catching my breath in my throat.

Nine year old fingers hovered over page 13

almost afraid to touch the image

where the boy King Tut’s sarcophagus was displayed

in brilliant gold;

perfect mimic to the journal itself.

Those fingers traced page 38 where the Quechua Indians

in the high Andes farmed the sharp sides of the mountains

18,000 feet in the air, the green fields 

like Grandmamas patchwork quilt

all in shades of green.

Nails chewed to the quick, I lingered on page 88

 where there was a map tucked inside.

Black and white penguins all in a row on the edge of an iceberg,

hanging off the edge of the world.

This shiny printed magic of exotic places became an escape.

When I was exhausted from shelling yet another bushel of butter beans

or bailing hay or breaking corn

 and my fingers were bleeding and sore, 

from all the chores a farm kid must do.

 Or yearning for just one ice cream cone I didn’t have to share 

with my sister when she had already eaten hers.

I would ease the latest one off the corner of the book shelf,

sprawl in the corner of the floor and my mind would escape

to those tombs and pyramids in Egypt

where I was a famous lady adventurer

riding camels through the sand.

 Hiking the Andes looking for another lost city or tribe.

The page would turn and I found myself

 wrapped in layers of fur and riding a small boat

 as I inched close enough to photograph 

those penguins while not falling off the edge of the world.

When I left home there were 10 years of those journals 

 filling 3 shelves on the bookcase. 

 The next trip home 

found those treasured, tattered and dog eared journals gone.

My childhood erased in a trip to the dump.

But sometimes; when I’m tired and feeling really blue

and overworked from life’s never ending demands

I close my eyes and find myself back in the sand

digging into a brand new tomb

 finding a lost tribe high in the Andes

or wrapped in fur and hugging tight to the edge of the world.

Life and Fear

It’s the half way mark in my first semester BACK in school...I’ve made it this far.  I’ve eased myself back into the academic world, I’m only taking two courses this semester with plans to take MORE hours next semester. I wasn’t sure how I would adapt to school after being away for for so many years. I worried that I might not be able to “keep up" with young, quick and very bright minds.  Working 36 hours straight through each weekend is quite taxing and I wondered if I could do that and then drive two hours to Spartanburg, sleep in a friends guest room two nights each week and then drive back to do the work thing again. 

I am managing all of the above. And much better than I expected. I am VERY tired each Sunday night when I get home from the hospital, but I’m good to go each Monday morning. Excited and filled with joyful expectation of what the week will bring.  

I can’t truly voice how excited and determined I am to complete this adventure.I’m having FUN!  I’m learning new things and practicing skills I’ve allowed to get rusty over the years.

Fear is another presence in my day. It was  a constant companion of mine for most of my adult life. It eventually controlled my world. I was afraid of disappointing others. Of being seen as less than a perfect wife and mother. Of BEING less than a perfect wife and mother. When the wife part failed and I was left a single mother with two children, fear that I would lose our home and not be able to provide for them occupied most of my waking hours and a good bit of my sleep. I was afraid I couldn’t work, and still be a good mother to my children.  My children managed and I was able to work and take care of what they needed. Fear still howled in my ear.  

Living with fear all the time was grueling and exhausting. I decided to take back my life from the monster.  Bit by bit I’ve done that. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his first inagural speech and a lesson I’ve learned “the only thing to fear is fear itself”  My children are adults now and living productive responsible lives. I have a good job that is secure in these difficult times. Somewhere over the past few years the fear became about what I have missed and might never have, simply because I was afraid to try.  I realized if I could face and deal with the obstacles of life as I knew it then I could do almost anything I wanted. What I wanted was the education I never completed. I wanted an environment where I could learn and feel safe. A place that would encourage and promote my  love of learning. I’ve found such a place at Converse College.  

I’ve learned that being too afraid to attempt  something new or different is much more oppresive and constraining than the fear of  actually trying something new. The goals I want in life might change due to my new adventure but that is not failure. Never attempting something because I am  controlled by fear is the failure.  

I have promised myself to never do that again.

Autumn ponderings

It’s a GLORIOUS autumn day and as I drove onto the campus of Converse College this morning I was once again filled with emotion to the point of tears. I am continually amazed and overcome with a myriad of emotions about being here. Joy,fear, excitement and determination are just a few.  Autumn is often viewed as decline, nearing the end, but for me it will ever be the time of MY rebirth!  

 Some might think I’m silly at this age to return to school but for over 30 years it’s something I’ve YEARNED for.  I’ve had a good life, very good in recent years, I have a secure job and my children are adults/almost adults now and living their lives.  So why tie  myself down to something like school? 

 I’m not sure I can voice the reasons why. It’s something I feel has been incomplete in my life and I’m all about goals and achieving them/ completing things I start. My brain needs almost constant stimulation and I just plain LIKE learning new things.  But, my life since I was 3 years old has been about being a caretaker and taking care of others.  Being told “ put others first always.” I learned that lesson TOO well. Somewhere in the years of caring for others, my sister, my husband, my children, then my parents and every lost soul/animal that came to my door  I LOST a part of me.  She hid herself away, locked deep in my subconscious and waited.  For most of that time she was quiet but in recent years she has unlocked the door, come out and insistently whispered, nagged and then yelled at me that there was MORE than the daily routine I followed.  She brought hope with her when she came out of the closet and she has insisted that it is MY turn in life.  My turn to grow and learn and experience this grand adventure first hand.  

 I worry that I’m selfish and silly and that I look ridiculous doing this at “my age” but she tells me “IT IS MY AGE” and it’s MY TURN and she has brought me here. 

Converse College is a truly extraordinary place. I don’t remember college being like this the LAST time I attended.  This is a women's school and so very different from a public coed university in all ways.  The campus is CLEAN, manicured and lovely to walk. There is a history here. Of nurturing, empowering and EDUCATING women in all the ways that matter.  Demanding all they have and then more but offering support to succeed. That sense of history and all that comes with it literally oozes from the pores of this place.

All the undergraduate classes are just women.  That provides me with a most unique perspective, since most of my life has been surrounded by and dictated to by men. It’s a safe environment where I can voice my opinions and thoughts without being ridiculed or being treated in a condescending manner . Voicing my views and thoughts is actually encouraged, and others respond in a thought provoking manner.  And I’m not the oldest student here!  There is a large group of Converse II “non-traditional” students and I am proud to join them.  

I’m finding my niche  and learning much from the phenomonal YOUNG women in my classes who seem to like, respect and enjoy my participation in class.

I spend most of my time here studying in the Mickel Library, I’ve taken over a table near the top of the stairs on the second floor.  It’s mostly quiet in this spot and it's next to a window so I can LOOK outside, but I can still see all the comings and goings and HEAR the really interesting things that go ON in a college library:-)

I’m not sure at all where this grand adventure will take me but between the panic attacks and occasional questioning of my sanity I’m having a BLAST! I’m holding on tight and enjoying this WILD ride!