Running Barefoot On Gravel
The Heartache List And An Aging Guppy Mom
There have been moments as a parent that have knocked me to my knees. Some, like when the twins needed braces or moved into separate bedrooms, could be me-only tragedies. While others—leaving two kids at college on the same weekend and coming home to an empty house—are universal. Aging while momming guppies has to be near the top of the universal heartache list.
Guppies: Grown-up human offshoots.
I've read that the best parenting is the kind that leads to healthy independence for both parent and child. After a recent stint with one of my gups, on a ten-point independence scale, I skidded from a pretty sturdy eight to a tremulous five.
I started out feeling really good; a first home purchase by one gup and the move they wanted help with. Several times, through college dorms and apartments, I had been part of the moving process, and we had developed a routine. Through those experiences, they learned not to worry that I didn’t know how to mind my opinions and space and that two of my life skills are organized packing and unpacking. As they put it, “Leave my mom in a room with boxes and come back in an hour. Everything will be put away in places that are logical. Sometimes only to her—but that’s the interesting part of it.”
On day two of the move, I began to note the differences between shifting into a new apartment versus a place they purchased. There was the new experience of ownership and the sense they were creating a home. Minding my opinions and giving them space needed to level up several notches on the fly. I suddenly felt as though I didn’t know where I fit or if I fit.
After the last box was broken down, I looked around and didn’t know what to do. The tasks that were left had nothing to do with me, and I thought about flying home early. My knees ached fiercely, and I wanted to reverently walk my dogs until the sun set and the stars told me the universe was vast enough for me to age through momming gups.
Perhaps my joints were playing telephone with my heart.
On my thirteenth birthday a neighbor asked what I wanted to do when I grew up. I thought about it and replied, “Maybe a vet or an archaeologist.” The neighbor said I needed to pick one and get started early since people had only so many years to live. Earlier that morning, when I had thought about my birthday, something told me I would live to 113. I found the idea of living another hundred years funny. 113 also seemed like a funny number. I responded to the neighbor, “I’m gonna live to 113. There’s plenty of time.”
I suppose the current awareness of my aging physical form and my place in the world is appropriate. A week from Monday, it will be fifty-one years since my thirteenth birthday. If the neighbor was around, I’d update them on my progress and say, “In a way I am both a vet and an archaeologist. I know my dog’s poop, mindset, and gut almost as well as a vet, and I sift through my life and ancestry with as much intensity as an archaeologist digging through a long-dead king’s tomb.
A thirteen-year-old giggles.
Something happens to the human body as it hurtles past the fifties. There is research suggesting cells dramatically shift into hyper-aging when people hop over the dividing line between fifty-nine and sixty. I anecdotally approve that message. Friends and clients have said that they woke up on their sixtieth birthday and shouted, “What the hell?” when their feet hit the floor. For me, it happened between sixty-two and sixty-three. Ever since, “What the hell” shoots out of my mouth when I navigate more than twelve stairs or if I stand on one foot and try peeling off a hiking boot.
The pace of the world is outpacing my ability to keep up. I see myself as running barefoot on gravel after a life speeding away from me. Now, as my knees echo a long list of dislocations and injuries, it is easier imagining myself crawling over gravel until I drop and beg the stars to remind me the universe is vast enough to hold my pain.
At twenty-eight, after an initial miscarriage that led to a lengthy infertility journey, I had a vision. I was on the cusp of falling completely asleep, napping on the couch and feeling the grief of all things. The apartment was dusky, the day not completely over, outlining furniture and the room with a warm glow. I heard the cackling giggles of small children and felt the pounding of feet vibrating into the cushions on the couch. In the soft glow, two little beings—opposites—one light-haired and one dark, and of the same age and height. Both wearing nothing but diapers and running like cherub pinballs careening against the walls and each other. The sight squeezed salt water from my eyes until I woke up sobbing and the twins faded from view.
I went on to miscarry five more times. After each loss, I was asked if I was ready to let it go and begin a different life. I would think of the dream and exhaustedly say no. When a pregnancy finally went to term, it was twins. One light, one dark. They were captured on film running in diapers like cherub pinballs careening against the walls and each other.
The pace of the world is lapping my ability to keep up. As yet, I don’t know if I fit in or what it all means or where I am going or if it is possible to crawl on gravel until the stars say the universe is vast enough to hold all this pain.
Perhaps, after forty-nine more years and on my 113th birthday, the stars will understand and oh-so-gently meet me halfway.
Oh so Lovely ❤️❤️