Natural Child Launching

I do believe life is a circular. What you had visited you will visit again.

I gave birth to my children naturally. I did it for a variety of reasons, none of which were about being Superwoman. Most honorably I did it because I did not want drugs in my child, I also did not want drugs in myself ( I never feel good under anethesia) I did not want to miss a moment of this miracle and  the idea of someone sticking a needle in my back is enough to bring up my gag reflex even this morning, 15 years after my last child was born. I can honestly say the pain was so bad I wanted to die, 6 times, I counted. So I expected it with each subseqent pregnancy, and I have convinced myself I can count through anything. Plus the nature of child birth, of rest time inbetween the pain, made it, in my mind, tolerable. Then he had colic for three months and my patience were tried beyond what I would have thought was humanly possible.

 I am currently reassessing a few of my previously held premises. Or atleast reevaluating under the current parental challenge. I am  getting ready to launch an adoescent into college life. I would say Adulthood, but that would be a lie. He is still dependent on his father & me financially, so "college life" is as much as I will acknowledge. The pain associated with this process, while never reaching the "wanting to die " level, it atleast equivelant to a total body sunburn. I just can't get away from it. I try, I ran away last night, all the way to Big Y, where I spent my time buying things for THEM. I suck at running away.

My house is not one for the drama of " I hate you, " You are ruining my life", slamming doors and stomping feet. Ours is more like the cold war of the 80's. The silence is piercing. The tension is palpable. And I cannot stand it. I cannot count through it, and quiet honestly I think I will be just fine if I don't remember all of it.  As a family therapist, I understand it all. But unlike knowing when the wave of a contraction will build and ebb, this provides no break. It is a constant rawness of Grand Canyon eske distance, in the same house. Getting them to sit for 20 minutes for dinner before each returns to their own cave, leaving me with the echos of the quiet kitchen is torturous, for me. I realize some would find this a blessing.

What is reassuring is threetimes in the past week I have been told what a "nice kid" he is. I witnessed myself how he stayed behind and helped a girl pull a paddleboat out of the water,( while the only othermale in the group walked up the hill ahead of them) and I felt a swell of pride. In that moment saw both his great-grandfather and father in him. That I no longer have access to that side of him,the " nice" side is a good part of the pain. I know he is under a great deal of stress looking at leaving all he has ever known and venturing off into new waters, 7 hours from home, does nothing to comfort me when ever time I open my mouth I am met with  a clipped, sharp  you-are-so-annoying tone. I need a break from it.

Then there's this idea he has that one should be completely closed off. I am told literally nothing. I learn more from his friends than he would ever share. He has some ideas in his head that he needs to work out, and I know I cannot be part of it.

Whenever he really hurts me, I go pack a few more things for him to take to school. Atleast a little reminder that soon it will be over, and yet.
And yet I can only imagine this current pain will be replaced with another pain. I know it is easier to part when we are already distant. I don't want that for either of us.
My friends know, I am not a big drinker. Pathetic actually. Not that I do not enjoy a glass of wine on occassion. I do always struggle at the DR's office when filling out the frequency chart for drinking. There is no box to check for one glass every other month or so category. But two glasses will put me under, it's a liver thing I guess. I have decided though that some form of anethesia for the remainder of this launching sequence may not be a bad thing. Take the sting off the sunburn or such.

Endings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnQ8N1KacJc&feature=player_embedded

So a long time ago, as the world watched the last episode of  Seinfeld and this poignant song played in the background, I knew in my bones my marriage was over.I haven't told anyone that before, until today. It took another three years for my knowledge to become reality. But that night, standing in my living room with my newborn, a 20 month old and a 3 year old and the neighbor who came to watch with me because my husband had gone to VT, in an emergency jaunt to return a table to his father, something inside me knew. That emergency jaunt was a huge sign, we, like most,  had watched most of Seinfeld together over the course of our life. Missing the last one, the one the world turned into, yeah something was over. "Another turning point a fork stuck in the road." "Something unpredictable but in the end was right."
" yada yada yada, & I mentioned the bisque"

This week, Thursday to be exact, another TV show ends, coinciding with another ending in my life. The kids and I were late to " The Office". My brother Sean mentioned it to me one year at Christmas, we watched an episode or two but it was mean. I was still getting over how mean Napoleon Dynamite was, I wasn't ready for Dwight & Jim & Michael. Then, on a vacation when the kids needed to get out of the sun in the middle of the day, we got hooked. We looked forward to our "Office" siesta each day. So much so that when we came home, we Netflixed all the past seasons and marathon watched them.

This was back when Netflix was on computers, and we hunkered down in my office to my 18 inch desk top to watch back to back episodes from the end of school Friday to late Saturday night. On these nights, when I see my children's faces for all of 20 minutes over dinner, these memories are sweet.

Their bodies squeezing into the love seat with me, fighting over who gets to sit next to me, "HA "very different from the four of us and two dogs fighting for inches on my king sized bed, and compressing their bodies so as not to brush up against me by accident.

So we watched. We pulled " Jim's" on each other, we cheered for Pam & Jim to get together, we laughed at Dwight's blind devotion to Michael, we were blown away by the writing and creativity, we cried when Michael left (OK that was just me, but they wondered if it would still be as good), we worried about the fate of Pam & Jim's relationship when Brian the camera man seemed interested and Jim was busy with his new company.We talked about what it takes to make relationships work, even make believe ones. It brought us together for one night a week for half and hour. Nick watches when Matt is not around, for hours on end. We have several board games, a few T-shirts, Dwight squishy heads and know what episode is coming before the openning credits play.

And this week, it's over.
 And Alex is leaving.
 Not this week, but since " The Office" is one of the only things that anchors him to this house, and AP exams are over, I'm thinking I may be seeing the back of his head more than anything else soon.
This Thursday, I will savor every moment of the last two hours of "The Office", and the four of  us hunkered together in the same 6X6 space. I am confident I will cry, and they will role their eyes. This is a TV show ending for them, and a turning point for us as a family.
And I can honestly say I had the time of my life.