SavageTimes

I’ve had the most fantastic Christmas break.  Truly.  My kids have been with me practically 24-7.  My daughter has moved back into my room.  My son has spent several hours a day (if we add it all up) talking to me about politics and history and things he’s reading and games he’s playing and stories he’s writing and….you wouldn’t know to see him at a party, hunkered in a corner with his DS, but he’s quite the talker when he feels comfortable.

Yes, there have been moments I have locked the bathroom door and spent an inordinate amount of time in there, so that one day my daughter asked if she should call someone for me.

Yes, there have been days when I have practically run out of the house for coffee/groceries/a walk with a friend.

And, after taking them down to Portland to see their dad last weekend, and very actively listening to their issues regarding that visit the entire three hours home, I almost literally dumped them at the house and went to meet friends for a birthday celebration, from which I did not return until after 2 a.m.

But overall, I’ve enjoyed every minute of our time together.

When I do go out, old and new friends will often say to me, “You managed to get away from the kids?!” or “You spend a lot of time with your kids…”

My replies range from humor to an attempt at humorous anger to distraction, depending on my mood, honestly.  I realized recently, after a newer friend said something similar and I answered in my similar way, that I don’t ever just say, “Yes.  Yes, I did ‘manage’ to get away from them.  They are 15 and 12, and I can literally leave random food in the fridge for them and they will figure it out.

“And yes, yes I do spend a lot of time with them.  Because they are fucking fantastic and amazing and funny.  And if you put the time in, they let you do what you want when you want to do it. And…I LIKE them. ”

We’ve been through a lot together.  And when they take off to find their own dreams–because I know they will, I have not raised them to NOT–I will be so, so proud.  And yes, I will miss them horribly.  But I will know they will be OK, because I will KNOW them.  And they will keep me in their lives, because I will keep them in my life.

There was a painting of a beautiful lady surrounded by children in a field of flowers hanging in my aunt’s stairway when I was growing up.  The lady and the children were joyful, and it was clear to me they had an amazing, loving bond.  The painting, I felt, reflected who my aunt was with her kids.  I went up and down that stairway dozens of times a week until I was in my teens, and I always stopped and gave that painting a few seconds of my tyime.  As I got older, and I started babysitting, I began to understand the amount of time the painting lady had to put in to find that joy with her children.  I also understood the story at the edges of the painting probably had the kids screeching and crying and the lady drop-dead exhausted and wanting to rip all the flowers out of the damn field quite often.

But I still wanted what she had, what my aunt had.  And, while I may not have 6 children, I have that with my two.

So, yes, I ‘manage’ to get away from them.  Quite a lot, some weeks.  They are OK with it, because yes, I do spend a lot of time with them.  It’s an investment.  For the now, when I want it, and also for the future.

You see me stuck in that painting.  I see the entire story.