Brilliant … But Bouncy

I Cry Because I Can’t Catch It.

I cry a lot lately.

I don’t know how often, or why, or even what causes it – but I can pinpoint when it started.

It started with childbirth.

I suppose I could blame hormones, although blaming anything for 15 years doesn’t make a lot of sense. Ever since Dylan was born – and equally so with Shane – I cry so easily, so frequently, it’s like there’s a river of tears just rushing around behind my eyes, and they escape without any true provocation.

I cry when my child does something wonderful. Oddly, I cry less often when my child does something that hurts. I used to cry when my kids got shots – but only if they cried. This, I learned, didn’t help matters.

So I have limited my crying more to the wonderful things, like when they are singing, or being funny, or just doing an incredibly good job. Then I cry.

I also cry during TV shows – sometimes not even sappy TV shows, but at sappy moments during intense dramas. I cry when a child gets hurt on TV. I cry when a child on TV is sad. I cry when a TV mom is worried about her children. I cry during all Disney movies.

Luckily, I haven’t seen Bambi since the children were born. I don’t think I could survive it.

I cry during touching commercials. This is particularly embarrassing, but I just blame the background music.

Which brings me to another point: I cry most often when there is music. I cry when I hear a new song, and Shane is sharing it with me. I cry when I hear an old song, and Dylan is singing along. I cry when I think about an old song, and how long it’s been since I heard it, and how sad it is that my kids don’t know it.

I cry when there’s a remake of an old song, and they’ve turned it into a new song, and my kids know the remake, but I don’t. I cry because I know the world has moved on so fast and furiously that my kids are hearing remakes of remakes, and they think the songs are new.

I cry because the world is moving on so fast.

I cry because no matter how fast it moves, I can’t slow it down for one second. I cry because I am so incredibly moved by a moment in time – one moment, any moment – that I hope to remember forever, even as I am watching it slip away.

I cry because it slips away, and because I know it always will. I cry because I can’t catch it, can’t hang onto it, can’t make every moment stay longer. I cry because I can’t hold on.

I cry because I love these moments with my children so much, so painfully much, that I want them to last forever.

And they can’t.

And that’s okay, because it’s not my job to make the world stop. It’s not my job to make time stop. And no matter how much I wish time would slow down, just let me appreciate it for a moment longer, the best I can do is to take snapshots and make memories and write them down and soak in every moment I can, even as those moments are passing me by.

I cry because I can’t stop time.

My job, apparently, is just to watch it go.