I’m thinking our hearts are much like a hot dog. Some hot dogs are plumper, some kosher, some stick out of their bun because they’re so big, yet they’re all made up of pulverized mystery meat and molded into shape. The heart is just like the meat of a hot dog because our kids take pieces of our heart and drops them into a Cuisinart and pulverize it. The little bastards start this the day they are born and continue that shit until THE. DAY. YOU. DIE. What makes it even worse in my case, is possessing traits of an Empath, a gift and a curse all rolled into one friggin bun. When my kids are full of anxiety – so am I; when they’re down the shitter – so am I; when they’re happy as a pig in shit – so am I, and I can pick up their emotions from as far as 1818.5 miles from Galveston, Texas to Block Island, RI. Truth.
Have you ever thought about the amount of packing you’ve done? Life is all about packing – we discard what’s no longer useful and take with us whatever we need to the next level of our journey. We packed as kids for sleepovers, vacations, college, a first apartment, a new home, to a new life with someone, for the hospital to bring a new baby home, seasonal clothes, seasonal decorations….those are some big life events right?
I’ve spent a helluva lot of time packing. Packing my children’s clothes to donate, unpacking hand-me-downs given to my children, packing up seasonal clothes twice a year times 3 along with my own (a 2 day job as the clothes whore-der I am). Packing my Mom’s clothes up after she passed away and my childhood home when my Father sold it. Clearing out personal belongings after a divorce. Reflecting on it now, there was a lot of emotion involved in all of that and even though I’ve been truly blessed with incredible coping skills, I used to possess a genetic defect when it came to crying. It was a rare occasion for me to cry. That drought ended the minute I helped the first kid pack and sent him off to college. I could fill a 12 person hot tub with the amount of tears I’ve shed in the past 9 years alone. I’m sure mental-pause was a big contributor along with a few slippery curve balls to the head that I didn’t duck fast enough for.
Child #2 – College Drop off – I cried the entire ride to Providence, Rhode Island as well as the return trip, and continued until I hit the 48 hour mark. I missed an Italian block party because I was ugly crier with that heaving stutter. Then that kid had the nerve to go on not one, but two semesters abroad once again making me cry.
Child #3- Is the instigator and baits me just to make me cry. I have a new hole in my heart each time she walks out the door to head back to school, and since she got my car last summer we don’t have that pick up/drop off time together any longer.
So, if that wasn’t torture enough, in between all that, my son decided he was going to continue his education in Texas. He packed up quick and took off in a 15 year old truck hightailing it knowing I turned into a crybaby. I picked over 60 tomatoes from his garden that day, cleaned up every inch of the yard all in manic mode while I sobbed and exhausted myself enough to pass out.
My basement went from a finished playroom to a flooded-now-equipped-with-a-sump pump storage facility. It’s nothing more than a stripped down dumping ground for everybody’s cast off shit including the kitty litter shit. My middle daughter lived home for a year after college and announced she “kind of might” move in with her boyfriend. That was to break it to me gently as her possessions slowly began disappearing and one day she never came back unless it was to visit or “borrow” the washer and dryer.
Now that same daughter is returning her wordly possessions back to our underground cement shit-pod because she’s moving to St. Croix just in time to ruin MY big holiday, Halloween. Then there’s #3 who has been prepping me about staying in New York to get her Master’s degree.
Now that I’ve given my history on packing, along with my emotional flaw of not being able to shove my kids out of the nest, maybe my 3 kids will get off my ass about why I don’t ever go down the basement let alone have the ambition to pack up, clean up, and organize the basement shit-pod as I’ve done for the past 24 years in just this house alone. Asides from my pink tinsel Christmas tree adorned with cheesy flamingos and Darien pink and lime green balls, there is nothing of importance down there except maybe the geriatric commode that I use as a flower planter. Everything that means anything to me has two legs, a smart ass mouth, and usually leaves with a rolling suitcase or duffel bag.
Coincidentally, I was already writing this post while laying in bed alongside a mountain of kleenex on a sick day, when my daughter sent me a text message that morning which read, “Wanna send me a love email?!? Mom’s wise words of wisdom on moving and how everything will be ok?!? I could use one .. ha ha ..” This from the defector who will be ruining my Halloween when she moves to St. Croix. So, as the saver of everything, I re-sent her an excerpt of a New Year’s letter I had sent to all three of my children in December 2012. As I told her, at least I’m consistent because what I wrote 3 years ago still applies today.
Being the middle child, you’ve had to endure some situations with your siblings and have done it with grace and kindness. You’re the on-the-move child much like your brother & me. If you keep moving, it makes it easier to cope & ignore what’s really bothering you. I will say the same to all three of you – DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. I will never get in your way or guilt you. I may gently guide you if I think you’re truly making a huge error in judgement and only when I know from my past experience that the end result won’t be a good one. You’re on a good path to independence and I commend you for sticking it out with a shit paying job. In the end, I’m sure there will be a reward for you. Any job you do is worthy job if you do your best! Carry on.
The simple truth is I love and adore my 3 children. I embrace and cherish all their differences. I am proud of the adults they have become, and if I didn’t like the little bastards so much, I wouldn’t suck so bad at launching them. Besides, does she seriously think my ass won’t be hopping flights to St. Croix or buying an in-law bungalow next door and doing my laundry in her house….or “borrowing” her underwear, eggs, toilet paper, paper towel, toothpaste, kleenex, shampoo, conditioner, body soap, cleaning supplies, etc? Matter of fact, I plan on waltzing down her driveway decked out in one of her brand new outfits, wearing one of her thongs over it as payback for all the years of borrowing my underwear and clothes.
The Word According to Be Hoxie (Hok-see) 