The Graduate

     My eldest child is moving away to college this Saturday.  There, I said it. I am equal parts ecstatic and heart-broken.  Talk about conflicting emotions. I am so excited for him to be embarking on this part of his life's journey.  The amazing things he will learn, the experiences he will have..this is what it's all about right?  As a parent, we are supposed to raise these little people into confident, respectable, honest big people and send them out to have their own lives. So why does my heart feel like it's being squeezed by a vice every time I think about leaving him at the University?  I mean, he's only going to be 2 1/2 hours away right?
     The truth is, this entire journey has been an adventure like none other.  We're given this being, to watch and protect.  We spend countless hours making sure that it eats, and sleeps, and stays clean and healthy. I mean we have to keep it ALIVE! We start making every decision in our lives with this person's best interest in mind. Our heart begins to feel things it has never felt before. Like, did you know you could cry from happiness from watching someone else succeed at blowing a bubble? Or riding without training wheels?  How about reading their first word? Or tieing their shoe? Did you realize that you could have moments where you were so afraid that what you had just said/done was going to negatively impact someone's life forever? If you just said, "yes" more....or maybe if you just said, "no" more often...You're in fact laying the foundation for a person's life.
     Then, somewhere along the line you learn that you're not the end all, save all in their life.  That they have free will.  There are outside factors that also will help to mold and shape them.  Things that you have no control over.  At first this is scary, but then you come to realize that this is the first moment of letting go...and it's OK. When you watch them walk into school all alone for the first time, or when they go to a play date without you.  The little strings start to get cut one by one. When they call a friend to tell them about a success before they share it with you.  When the bedroom door is no longer left open all the time.
     In fact, the design of it all eases you into it thankfully. It would definitely be more of a shock if we went from diapers to driver's license in one month. There's a reason that just about the time they start to realize that maybe you don't know everything, they get their first taste of real freedom, and you get a serious dose of powerlesness as about a million strings get cut when you hand over those car keys.
     There's also no coincidence that they begin to be, shall we say, less than the adorable little people they once were. It seems that everytime I start to feel the weight of his moving out, he'll make a comment, say for instance, about my "lady brain" (his term) and the fact that it cant comprehend the mechanics of a winch (which may or may not be true), or he'll send me some hideous candid photo that he took of me to send to his friends (haha look at my mom), and I think, "Bon Voyage Buddy, don't let the door hit you!" Then there's the large loads of laundry, the dirty socks on the floor, the unmade beds, the grumpy mornings, the dirty looks.  Man I'm going to miss all of that terribly!
     I guess it all boils down to mourning the passing of time even when you probably should be rejoicing in it.  The logistics aside, there is a sense of loss when you look back as to how fast time really goes by.  How quickly children go from calling you, "Momma," to "Ma." How the rock or Snapple cap collections turn into music libraries. The little tiny toddler shoes replaced by men's size 11's that you nearly break your neck tripping over daily. The little guy who thought you were the most beautiful, intelligent woman in the world who ends up thinking you're slightly ridiculous.
     You also realize that time hasn't stood still for you.  The terrified first-time mother who has the pediatrician on speed-dial ends up turning into the mother who can correctly diagnose most diseases. Moving from being somewhat uptight and judgemental to emphatic and a lot more laid back because life has brought you to your knees more times than you'd like to admit and you know now exactly who you are and where you stand. Your role in their life has changed so much.  You have grown up alongside them.
     Somehow through all of the temper tantrums, scraped knees, night terrors, calls from the principal, and sarcastic remarks he has become my best friend. Not in the way that the line between parent and child is blurred to allow disrespect, but in the way that he's become the best that I could have ever hoped for.  That the piece of my heart that will forever live outside of me and in him is reflected by an amazing and beautiful young man. Here's to the next part of our journey Jason. I love you.

It's Not the Race.....

     As I was slogging it out on the treadmill this morning before work, I was thinking that perhaps I need a new mantra for my daily run.  That somehow, "I hate running," wasn't motivating me quite enough. And yet there I was, panting my way through the mile-marker chanting in my head to the rhythm of my steps, "I hate running...(inhale)..I hate running." It's not exactly the positive affirmation that I would recommend to my yoga students. "As you inhale think of something positive, like how much sitting in cross-legged pose hurts your ass."
     What is it that I don't like about running?  Oh, there's the fact that I'm not very good at it.  If I run a 10-minute mile it's a particularly speedy day.  Even in my younger years my coaches would all marvel as to how a young, fit girl with legs as long as mine could possibly be one of the slowest on the team.  I remember fondly how coach Renz would yell to me, "Hey Sara!  Move it Gruba Dupa."  That would be my Irish/Italian coach calling me a, "fat ass" in Polish to motivate me to hurry up around the track. A veritable ethnic melange of positive reinforcement. Never worked by the way. Fortunately for me I could hit a ball hard enough that I didn't have to be a fast runner.  I played first base so no big charges were necessary and in volleyball there is a relatively small area that I had to cover.  Thanks to that he tolerated me.
     I also experience exercise-induced panic attacks.  Oh, you didn't know there was such a thing?  ME NEITHER.  That is, until spending various moments of my life with my head between my knees on bathroom floors in the middle of a spin class trying to make my ears stop ringing and my heart from bursting through my chest wall.  After a trip to the hospital and a battery of tests from a cardiologist the diagnosis was, "Exercise-induced panic attacks."  Come again?  I exercise to HELP relieve the stress in my life.  I was so offended at first.  I felt like the Dr. looked at my history and basically said, "Well, you have 5 kids...a mortgage...a job...what did you actually THINK was going to happen?"  But wait, I am a YOGA INSTRUCTOR, I can't possibly have stress right? "Well Mrs. Van Goor after a while the body can only take so much." Fantastic, can you please tell my body that things aren't slowing down anytime soon so it needs to pull itself together and get on board here?
     The previous two reasons aside and the little matter of the fact that I hate to sweat, I still find myself running.  Why?  Why would I put myself through this?  Why engage in an activity that a:  I'm not very good at.  b:  I don't enjoy.  c:  Could cause me to pass out in an act of public humiliation that runs through my head way too often.  It's a little something that I like to call "Faking it, till I make it."  I didn't make up the corny little slogan obviously, but it speaks volumes to me.  You see, I am not naturally inclined to do things that are good for me.  Sometimes my best thinking got me into situations in my life where I would have been much better off avoiding altogether. I run, because I know it's good for me.  And I know that there are a bunch of reasons as to why running ISN'T actually that great for me.  I used to quote them smugly to my running friends as to why I didn't run.  There's the high impact on the joints, particularly the knees.  The risk of an enlarged heart.  Foot issues and muscle wear.  The fact of the matter is that running has become a big part of how I take care of myself...in spite of myself.
     I figure if I keep running, eventually I MIGHT learn to love it...OK like it.  I mean I know it's been almost 3 years but it will grow on me right?  Well regardless, the act of running has had a profound positive effect on me.  The most obvious and tangible has to be my weight.  Thanks to that bout of panic attacks that I previously mentioned, I went on some anti-anxiety medication a few years ago.  I gained 40 lbs because of it.  No matter how much exercise I did or how much I watched what I ate the weight just kept on piling on.  I was taking pills because of the lack of control I had over my body's response to stress and was causing myself stress because of the lack of control I had over my body's response to the medication....you see the vicious cycle here?  I decided that I was going to try a different route to deal with this new friend of mine known as debilitating anxiety.  I looked it right in the face and said, "Screw you."  OK, so it wasn't so big and brave as that.  I was terrified.  The first time I went for a run I think I made it about 100' before my heart rate went up and darkness started to close in on me. I walked the rest of the way shaking in my trainers, but I went back.  Again and again I would lace up those shoes and head out.  Sometimes just the thought of running would cause a panic attack to come on but I would say a prayer and make myself a promise, "Just a quarter mile...just a half mile...just a mile."  Then the promises became, "Just one more mile."  It took a full year but I lost all of that weight and more.
     I began to see a change in how I tackled situations in life.  I had previously sunk into a sort of pattern of procrastination that really wasn't who I was.  Pushing myself with mile markers on the track helped me to motivate myself to achieve other goals in my life.  I started to find a better balance between work and motherhood. I saw my career start to grow.  My self-esteem began to get better as I changed my goals from being the idealistic pictures that I daydreamed about to being small, slow steps that I could actually achieve.  I just felt better.  That's not to say that I don't still feel panic attacks coming on.  Sometimes it's so bad that I have to stop what I'm doing and pray that I make it to my car or a bench before keeling over in public.  Most of the time though, I recognize it for what it is and I have learned to squash it right under my track shoes.
     There are so many times in my life where I have to "fake it till I make it."  Where I do what I know is good for me in spite of what I really would prefer to be doing.  I have forced myself to become a morning person, waking up before 6am even though my internal clock rises at about 10.  My days are easier if I give myself more time to start them off right.  There are also many times where I have to force myself to exude an energy and happiness that I am just...not....feeling.  Whether it's at work or with my kids, sometimes I just have to slap on a grin and put on my best show.  Granted, there are times where I wear it all out there, right on my sleeve and I think that's good and healthy too, but sometimes plastering that fake smile on and making the heart-shaped cookies when I really just want to close my bedroom door and ignore everyone, I find myself actually feeling the joy that I was pretending just a moment ago to have. Maybe some day this rule will apply to the times I eat that kale salad instead of the sub sandwich I really want...maybe I'll actually REALLY enjoy it so much more than I would have enjoyed that sub...although somehow I doubt it.  And maybe one day I will put my fears aside and enter a race, not worrying so much about fainting from fear in front of anyone or the fact that I will probably be running alongside the elderly..or behind them. Maybe one day I will have the guts to take some bigger risks that so far I haven't had the courage to do. For now, I will continue to lace up my Nikes and wog (that's half walk/half jog BTW) my way to the next mile, not because I enjoy it, but because I know it's good for me.  I can only imagine where the journey will take me.
   

In Like a Lion......

 

 March has chosen to arrive as a lion this year; a frozen, white, snowy lion.  I found myself home again with the children yesterday brainstorming busy work to keep the cabin fever at bay.  We were able to get out in the early part of the day before what feels like our 20th snow storm came.  We filled our time knitting, baking, reading, watching some tv and playing games. All the while we watched outside as if someone tipped the snow glob once again.
      I really don't mind the snow.  Don't get me wrong, I don't relish in having to drive in it because of my location on top of a winding, mountain road, but if it's winter then I feel that snow has its rightful place and I am fine with it.  I usually enjoy the crisp, clean whiteness that covers the otherwise drab and dead winter landscape.  There is nothing more beautiful than that dazzling, sparkling whiteness in the sun the next day. It feels almost as if a washing, or a cleansing period before the growth that occurs in Spring can begin again (oh there's an allegory in there isn't there?!).  Somehow the cold, raw elements outdoors make it feel all the more warm and cozy inside.  The house fills with a quiet calm now that the children are older and everyone finds their favorite activities to do. It alleviates the pressure of having to be so productive and makes room for precious moments like reading, "Little House on the Prairie," with my youngest.  An afternoon nap is a somewhat less-guilty pleasure for me while it's snowing outside.
     I will even admit that I enjoy shoveling.  I find it to be very satisfying, almost therapeutic, work. You can see the fruits of your labors right away, adding up in little neat rows. Unlike so many jobs that I find myself doing, where you know that you are working towards an end or a goal, but it may take years or even a lifetime (think parenting), to see the outcome.  So many of the tasks that make up my job as a mother yield little tangible results.  I usually do them knowing that the end justifies the means whether I see the means or not with my own eyes.  That can be satisfying on its own level, and a very important level at that, but there is something to be said about a labor that has instant results.          For a while it's just myself in the dark, with shovel in hand.  I can feel the icy flakes on my cheeks and even hear them as they land on the already snowy surfaces.  It's that peaceful and quiet on a snowy night.  I can see my own breath, and feel my muscles strain as I work methodically to free my driveway.  My thoughts can take their time sorting themselves out until I'm really thinking of nothing but the next row to shovel.  Towards the end of shoveling my youngest appears on the doorstep.  She felt that I might like some company.  Suddenly the silence is filled with her happy 8 year-old chatter as she gladly takes the broom to "help," me sweep the steps clean. We finish our job and go back inside where it feels almost too warm now.  I soon find myself surrounded by a wall of laundry piles, which is one of those jobs that there never seems to be an end.  March is here as a lion but before I know it, it will be going out with Spring sports' practices, followed soon after by prom pictures, graduations and my oldest moving out to college.  I'm OK for now taking in each day, even if it's a snow day, because I know just how fast Spring and Summer and the whirlwind they bring will come.