Month: June 2020

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Imaginings

His shoulders are spreading apart.  There’s a square-ness to his jaw and a deepening in his voice.  It’s all so typical, 14-year old boy.  And it’s all medically-induced.  The hormones that I inject into his thigh every week are turning him into a young man.  

I know, deeply, that this is the right choice.  He’s been all boy for the last five years.  

But there were eight years before that.  Eight years where I tried to squeeze him into this mold of who I thought he was.  Of who I thought he was supposed to be.  Of the little girl who would grow in to my best friend.  A silly dream?  Probably. 

Last night, I sat on the edge of his bed, while he scrolled through his TicToc videos for me.  He’s quite the artist.  These videos aren’t just fun to him.  They’re an artistic expression.  There’s lighting and costumes and effects.  Some are silly.  Some are dark.  All exude talent.  He explained the characters in the videos; who he was representing and why.  He talked about their backstories and which ones he could relate to and he explained the connections I never would have understood.  Watching him light up, talking about something that excites him… I’ll never get tired of that.  

Even as my eyes drooped and I stifled a yawn, I settled in to hear more.  I settled my head on his pillow, while he sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, pointing to posters for my reference.  Eventually, he curled up under his blanket, resting his head on the pillow next to mine.  He let me play with his hair (so unusual that he’ll allow it, now) and we continued to talk about significant and insignificant things.  I breathed it in.  

As they grow older, there are fewer and fewer chances to connect in a really authentic way.  They’re embarrassed by us.  They’d rather be with their friends.  They’re just too old to cuddle anymore.  

But for me, there’s another layer.  I think there’s part of me that worried I wouldn’t have those moments with my son.  When this child was a baby, I imagined lots of sweet, mother-daughter moments; dress shopping and late-night gab-fests among them.  I eventually let go of those imaginings, but not without my share of secret tears in the shower.  Perhaps I was a bit premature.  

He’s a fourteen-year old boy now.  And there are still these beautiful moments.  Binge-watching Queer Eye together.  Walking the dogs and listening to his laugh.  Chatting about his art late into the night.  None of that is gendered.  Why did I ever think it was?  Why did I ever assume that I lost something when he transitioned? 

The thing is, as parents, we’re always losing them.  We’re losing bits and pieces of their childhoods every day.  They grow and they change.  And before we know it, they’ve become such full, amazing, complicated people that we can no longer hold them under the umbrella of who WE are, as parents.  They don’t belong there anymore.  

And it doesn’t matter if their development is early or late or induced by injections.  It doesn’t matter if they’re boys or girls or who they fall in love with or what parts are in their pants.  It doesn’t matter because they all grow up.  They become so much more than just our children.  They become so much more than anything we could have made them.  

14 years ago, my imaginings were so small.  I had no idea.  I imagined a future that doesn’t make sense in hindsight.  But isn’t that the beauty of life?  Every moment has the potential for surprise.  For learning.  For change. If we’ve learned nothing from these past few months, we’ve learned that life is unpredictable.  And hard.  And beautiful.  To really live this life we’ve been given, we need to allow ourselves to listen.  To grow.  To not get so committed to our imaginings that we can’t see the beauty that’s right in front of us.  

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A New Kind of Summer

We’re letting up a little on our quarantine rules.  The kids can hang out with a friend, as long as they stay outside.  The adults have the same rule, so we can sit by a fire pit with another couple and have a few drinks.  If we need to run to the store, we don our masks and go.  Things are starting to feel just a little more normal.  It’s almost summer vacation, so the online classes are ending and the days feel a lot less hectic.  

Because we’ve been home for so long already, I’m not feeling the usual, self-inflicted summer pressure.  I don’t have a massive ‘to-do’ list because I’ve tackled so much of it already.  We’ve completed the epic three-bedroom switch of 2020.  I love my new room and the kids love theirs.  The basement is cleaner than it’s been in years.  Much of the house is freshly painted, and Lee gets his new mattress delivered on Monday.   The linen closet is clean and we cleared out a large section of the backyard for a fire pit near the river.  That list of accomplishments helps me to feel… satisfied.  Settled.  Calm.  There used to be three rooms in our house that felt incomplete or uninviting to me.  That’s no longer the case.  I’m in love with our home. Before, the back yard was unwelcoming.  We didn’t have enough sunshine or places to sit.  That’s not true anymore.  I’m able to really enjoy our outdoor space, too.  

Yesterday, we did a bunch of yardwork and cleaning and I was sweating my tail off.  Cal begged me to join him in the pool (which I rarely do before August), and I decided to take him up on it.  I had just recently ordered a new bathing suit online, which, shockingly, I LOVE.  I was excited to put it on and ease into the cool water.

My youngest son and I cleaned the pool and played games and floated and I was reminded how nice it feels to just stop and enjoy the kids and the pool and the sunshine.  The neighbor boys came over to swim, too, while I sat in the sun and sipped a mojito and read my book.  My middle child biked to a friend’s house.  The oldest went for a drive.  Even as I enjoyed this time with Cal, I was reminded that they’re all growing up so quickly.  They have their own friends and their own lives and their own modes of transportation now.  It’s exciting and sad all at the same time. 

I’m a pretty task-oriented person.  I wake up each morning with a list of things to accomplish, and I generally spend my first few wakeful moments planning the sequence of my day.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t work all the time.  Sometimes the plan includes a trip to the lake or a picnic or a hike or a family movie.  But this summer is going to require a shift.  Most of our summer activities aren’t possible in the same way this year.  There won’t be trips to museums or beaches.  There won’t be bowling alleys and visits to the mall. 

Generally, if I’m home, I’m working on something.  Cleaning or a project or cooking or even writing.  I might be hosting some friends or setting up for a party.  But I don’t often have a day where I’m at home and the plan is just to relax.  That’s just not how I’m wired.  

For this summer, I’m going to have to make an effort to rewire.  A day at the beach will be replaced with a day in the backyard, and I’m going to have to be able to relax there without worrying about the laundry or the projects or any of the other infinite jobs that come with home ownership and parenting.    

So I guess that’s my goal for this summer.  Instead of tackling a ridiculous to-do list, I’m going to practice enjoying what we have.  These kids aren’t going to be here forever.  The sunny days in the backyard are more numbered than I’d like to admit.  The chores and the projects will never be done.  But someday soon, the kids will be gone and I’ll certainly regret all the days I didn’t spend in our little intex pool.  I’ll regret the giggles and the splashes that I missed.  I’ll regret the s’mores we didn’t make and the hikes we didn’t take much more than I’ll regret the fact that our bathroom never got repainted.  

So, here’s to a different kind of summer.  I’ll be in the backyard with a mojito, if anyone wants to join me.  

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What now?

When George Floyd was murdered, I cried.  I cried to my husband and I sat down my kids and we all talked with sincerity about racism and power and using our voices.  For those of you who don’t know, I have a black daughter and a white trans son and a white, cis-hetero son.  And as I looked at them, my heart split wide open.  I thought about all of the ways in which two of them will be forever vulnerable, just by nature of who they are.  And I thought about that third child.  The one who will live a more privileged life, based on nothing but his gender and the color of his skin.  How do I help these children to be brave and use their voices to fight for each other’s humanity?  How do I help them to see all that is wrong with the world and still shine a light on the beauty and kindness that exists there? How do we equip them to fight a problem that has plagued us for centuries? 

And my husband and I, who mostly disagree on all things political, agreed that THIS, in fact, was NOT.  Valuing the life of a human being is NOT a political stance.  That first night, we were on the same page.  We denounced those police officers.  We denounced systemic racism.  We acknowledged our own white privilege.  We talked to our family from a place of privilege AND pain.  We owned our shit.  It was hard, but it was good.  

And then, it was time to do my own work.  I had done enough reading to know that white women’s tears are worthless to a black mother who has lost her child.  I dug a little deeper.  I went in search of the black and brown voices that needed to be elevated.  I listened to podcasts.  I ordered some books.  I dug into the painful rejoinder that “All Lives Matter” because OF COURSE they do.  And all lives will not matter until Black Lives Matter.  I admitted to myself that I have shied away from difficult conversations for far too long.  I vowed to do better.

***** 

And then I got a tearful phone call from a dear friend.  Her husband, a NYC police officer, was deployed into what he describes as a war zone.  The destruction and the riots and the protests quite literally put my friend’s life on the line and I choked.  He tells us that it’s so much worse than the media is reporting.  He tells us that it’s one of the worst things he’s ever seen, and he was a first responder on 9/11.  I love and respect this man.  I fear for him.  I admire his strength and his intelligence and his compassion.  I pray for him. I pray for his family.  And I cry again.  

And the see-saw begins in my brain.  

Is that how a black mother feels every time her son leaves the house?  

Of course there are riots.  Peaceful protests didn’t work. 

Do we value white people’s property over black people’s lives? 

How do we show respect for the men and women who serve and protect without diminishing the pain of those who have suffered a system that has denied their humanity for centuries?  

*****

Once again, it all becomes political.  For a few days, my husband and I retreat into our separate, angry, defensive corners.  We are afraid to bring up this topic, even with each other, because it is so charged and we have argued over far less important things.  

We slowly break away from our singularly sided news sources and definitively partisan news feeds and begin to sift through all the misinformation to find truth.  We share articles with each other.  We move toward each other.  We worry together.  We cry together.  

Because the underlying truth is that a fight for humanity is NOT partisan.  A respect for police is not partisan.  My husband and I love each other deeply.  We respect each other deeply.  And we sometimes disagree deeply.  But we keep showing up to have hard conversations.  We are able to do it because we reside on a foundation of love and respect.  

One of those podcasts I listened to helped me to see a trap we all fall into.  When we identify with someone or some group, we tend to attribute to them all of their best qualities.  When we don’t identify with them, we tend to attribute to them all of their worst qualities.  That’s how we come up with stereotypes of ignorant southerners or lazy black people or racist conservatives or snowflake liberals.   

In my house, those are the worst fights.  When he calls me a sheep and a snowflake and I call him ignorant and bigoted.  In our anger, we resort to stereotypes and name-calling.  Nuanced, complex, productive conversation is trampled.  Instead of searching for solutions and hearing each others’ voices, we are throwing firebombs at imaginary targets.  I am watching this happen on a global scale and it terrifies me. 

We are all so deeply afraid in this moment.  

And I don’t know how to handle it on a large scale. 

But all the years of this liberal living with a stubborn, passionate, loving, open-minded, funny, hard-working conservative have taught me how to handle it in my own home.  

We take a breath, but we don’t walk away.  We can’t afford to because there is too much at stake.  But the name-calling and firebombs won’t move us forward.  We cannot accomplish anything until we reset. We need to remember our shared humanity.  We need to acknowledge our shared fears.  We need to face difficult conversations and really, actually LISTEN to each other’s voices.  We need to get curious about what we don’t know instead of getting defensive about what we think we know.  We need to dig into a conversation that requires less responding and more learning.  

I don’t know what to do on a large scale.  I’m still planning to attend a rally this weekend.  I’m still praying for my friend in New York.  And I will continue doing the things in my own life that lay a foundation for my children to grow into adults who listen and learn and consider different perspectives.  I will continue to teach them that it is their sacred duty to stand in a place of love and use their voices to stand up for their brothers and sisters, both in this family and out there in the big, beautiful, scary, breathtaking world.  That’s all I know how to do.