Brilliant … But Bouncy

Why Are You So Sad?

One Sunday morning, I was minding my own business when I heard, quietly on the other side of the room, Dylan’s voice. He was singing one of his own songs, and my stomach flipped for a minute before I remembered:

Dylan’s not here.

Bill had music playing on his computer on the other side of the room while he worked. He was listening to Dylan’s songs, as if having Dylan’s music playing wasn’t something to be treasured while doing nothing else at all except attentive listening.

I turned around with a tear in my eye.

Shane said, “Why are you so sad?”

“Because Dylan’s not here!” I said. His music was here; his videos were here. Heck, his bed is still here. But Dylan is not here.

This is something that hasn’t really bothered me before. I was just talking to someone about how easy it’s been, having him at college.

“I’m just so happy that he’s happy!” I said, and I meant it. I think about Dylan all the time. But I think about the things he’s doing at college, and it makes me happy.

I’m happy that he has close friends and that he’s got plenty to do. I’m happy that he likes his classes, that he’s getting phenomenal grades, that he’s on track for graduation in four years. I think about him turning in his work, sure, but compared to high school – I don’t think about it at all.

I wait to get texts from Dylan, and hope for FaceTime calls and photos. I treasure them the way I treasure watching a song of his on YouTube. Sometimes he just “likes” something that I text to him – a skill that I have yet to acquire – and even that, I treasure.

But when I hear his voice, his gorgeous singing voice, coming from a computer and being relatively ignored, it absolutely breaks my heart. Even though Dylan would be thrilled to have his music be someone’s background music, it makes me sad.

Because to me, Dylan isn’t background. He’s front and center, light of my life, always. He and Shane share a spotlight that no one else will ever be able to share.

It’s sad, in fact, for those people in my life who probably want some of that spotlight. There are people in my life – my husband, for example – who definitely have my heart, but who don’t have the spotlight.

I keep thinking about a comment, when I was pregnant. He and Bill both had children, and I didn’t. I was trying to figure out how I could possibly even like the child I would have – and what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t feel like kissing my own baby?

Our mutual friend, “I’d jump in front of a train for my daughter, and I’d never even think about it.”

Bill said, “You’d jump in front of a train for your wife, too, wouldn’t you?”

And he said, “Sure! But I’d think about it first.”

And that, they agreed, is how parenting works. It’s an instinct, to protect those babies.

But when the baby is grown and gone, and I can’t physically jump in front of the train, quite honestly: I just miss his personality. I miss listening to him sing, and talk, and just be him. I want to see him, to hear him, to be with him.

Even though I know it’s way better for both of us if he’s living entirely independent of me.

Still, when he sings, I will stop. And I will listen. And I will treasure every moment I can.

We Had No Internet.

We cut the cord.

No, no, not the umbilical cord – the cable cord. Technically speaking, we got rid of Fios, which is apparently something different – and we really liked Fios more than cable, too.

But…

I discovered YouTube TV with its unlimited DVR, and all the channels I love except one – plus a slew of other channels I didn’t know existed – and I just had to have YouTube TV. And we love it.

Getting YouTube TV was easy – but Bill (who is the only tech geek in the family) said that we needed ethernet instead of whatever we used to have, in order to download stuff and stream faster. YouTube TV seemed to be working absolutely fine without ethernet, but I told him I didn’t think we needed a gigabyte, whatever that is – so he settled on ethernet as a compromise.

Here is what I know about ethernet: a guy has to come and install it, or we won’t get it.

So, one morning, a guy come to our house shortly after 8 a.m. Marvin was great. He was friendly and professional and asked all the questions that Bill told me I’d have to answer, so I figured he knew what he was doing.

Marvin encountered a problem with running some wire thing through something else – “and there was even a pull-string!” he told me, recognizing the value of a pull-string. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I could tell instantly that this guy was going to do whatever it took to run whatever-wire-thing through the whatever-else. And he did.

Meanwhile, though, we had no internet. I couldn’t check my email. I couldn’t surf the web. I couldn’t watch TV. I couldn’t look up the answers to the plethora of questions that pop up in my head and normally send me to the internet.

The problem could take hours to fix! So what on earth was I going to do?

Well, I packed for a trip. Conveniently, I had a trip in my immediate future – although I was actually already packed. But I put in toiletries and books for the plane ride and even chose my snacks for any time I might get hungry in the rental car.

I also did laundry. I cleaned up some stuff. Then I cleaned up some more stuff. I put stuff away that had been sitting out for days – maybe months – and I reorganized stuff that was already organized sufficiently.

I ate breakfast. I played with the dog. I fed the birds and the squirrels, who were very happy. I also fed the dog. Twice.

I texted people – just because I could – and talked to Bill, who kept calling to see if the guy was done installing our ethernet.

Then I started studying the Senior Outdoor Adventures in Recreation booklet. This meant I could read about all kinds of day trips for seniors – like myself – to take in the spring. Registration opens soon, so I gave every option serious consideration, making marks in my booklet so that I could discuss these options with the other seniors I know.

Then I gave up trying to be productive and wrote a blog post. Then I considered taking a nap – but failed.

Life without online activity is far more boring than I remembered. Whatever ethernet is, it’s going to be wildly worthwhile.

I Know He Needs to Break Away.

I am having trouble coming up with material for my blog.

This is not to say I’m not parenting, or learning new things every day. When I started this blog, I thought I would be having little revelations every day – and often, I do have little revelations.

But lately, they have been about the dog. He’s tough to train, and I never know if I’m doing anything right. Loki, in this way, is like Dylan.

But Dylan went to college, and he was a source of great learning for me. Watching the kids together, too, taught me a lot. But when Dylan left for college, Shane started hibernating – as teenagers often do – and I was left virtually alone.

We don’t eat dinner together anymore. I know it started when I stopped eating gluten, but it’s gotten worse. We don’t even eat dinner in the same room anymore. Everyone just grazes at random. On a good day, two of us will go out to eat together. Often, we will drive through somewhere and hand Shane the crappy food teenagers enjoy. Later I will have a bowl of spinach and green onions or something.

Truthfully, dinner and car rides is all we had left – and lately, we don’t even have dinner. I can’t help but think about that commercial that says families who eat dinner together are better off. And we ate dinners together for many, many years.

But that darned gluten is in everything, and making three separate meals just seems ridiculous.

We do occasionally watch TV together. Recently we watched Jeopardy’s “Teen Tournament” with Shane, and that was great fun. It was short-lived, but great fun. And we watched the entire season of The Masked Singer with him. Sometimes TV is the only way we can drag him back to us.

I know he needs to break away. I know he needs to be independent. And I know this is a natural phase of his life.

Shane is doing his own thing, his way. He’s quietly moving out of the childhood realm and into the adult world. I miss him, as he’s going, and it’s hard to know that he’ll be fully grown if I so-much-as blink.

And unlike Dylan, there are no fights, no disagreements, no debates over what should and shouldn’t be done. Shane is a completely different person, and he is growing in his own way – which is to say: a completely different way.

And that is fine. It just feels like Shane is growing up without me.

And with Dylan gone, it’s just so very, very quiet.

So while I will keep writing, please understand if it’s not as frequently, or if it revolves around parenting a dog. It’s just my life these days.

It’s Hard Dealing With Boys.

When Dylan went back to college, I was ready. He was ready. Bill was probably ready, although he worked through a lot of Dylan’s days at home.

But I’m not sure Shane was ready. In fact, I think Shane may have had the best time with Dylan out of all of us. He actually hung out with Dylan. They did stuff together.

As parents, we tried to “do stuff” but it usually ended up with Shane and Dylan complaining about Bill or me, or both. There was some fun reminiscing about their childhoods – done mostly by Dylan – but when Shane and Dylan were together, they really enjoyed alone time.

So now that Dylan is gone, Shane is – well, alone again. And I don’t think I realized how much time he spent alone until Dylan left and Shane started thoroughly enjoying the electronic gifts he got for Christmas – by himself.

So I’ve been trying to encourage him to do things with other people. I’m particularly trying to get him to hang out with guys his own age – which, it turns out, is nearly impossible.

It’s hard dealing with boys, and I didn’t know that. Boys don’t really respond well to other boys. As a female, I’ve never been very comfortable with male communication styles.

And in high school, male communication is not comfortable for anyone – not even boys.

Dylan always texted girls, invited girls over, wanted to hang out with girls. And I never understood that – until I was reading a book and the high school guys joked about how “only girls text each other.”

So that explains a lot. And Shane has some wonderful girl friends, and they do a lot with Shane. But I still try to push the guy friends on him – and I think, as I am writing this today (having had a rough morning with Shane already), I am going to stop pushing the guy friends. Shane has guy friends, and if they don’t want to hang out after school, that’s going to be okay.

As long as Shane is okay with it.

The Jar Trick is a Symbol.

I had to open a jar, and the lid was on tight. So, excited to show Shane what I knew, I pulled out a butterknife and held up the jar for Shane, who was eating breakfast.

“Wanna see a cool trick?” I asked.

Shane rolled his eyes at me. “Not really.”

Unperturbed, I continued. “You take the handle of the butterknife, and you whack the lid a couple of times in the direction that you want to turn it – just gently.”

“You already showed me this,” Shane said.

“But look!” I tried again. “Just two or three simple whacks in the right direction and it will open right up!”

“I know,” Shane groaned. “You’ve told me this like a million times.”

I backed off, opening my jar with less enthusiasm – but still happy to be opening the jar.

Because: that jar trick belonged to my grandmother. It is one of the few things I know that was handed down through the generations. And it’s such a cool trick that I wanted to make sure my own kids would pass it along to their kids, too.

And it’s disappointing when my kids don’t react as they should, about something as exciting as opening a jar. I mean sure, maybe Shane did better with it the first time I told him – but probably not. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a history – or what it’s like to hold on to that history after your grandmother dies.

He doesn’t know that the jar trick takes me right back to Grandma’s tiny white kitchen, with its short shelf of breakable things that I wasn’t allowed to touch, an enormous jar of Lemon Blennd on the floor behind the door, and a lidded pot of stewed tomatoes cooking on the stove.

Shane doesn’t know how proud I am that my ancient grandmother, who was in her mid-sixties when I was born, found a way to open a jar without any silly man around to do it for her. I’d spent my entire life handing jars to my dad or boyfriend, until I learned the trick.

Shane doesn’t know that for me, the jar trick is a symbol of the strength that oozed from my grandmother. The oldest of ten children, she survived the death of an infant, and then raised four beautiful girls completely on her own since my grandfather disappeared long before they coined the term “deadbeat dads.”

Then my grandmother got to know all eleven of her grandchildren and some great grandchildren, outlived all of her siblings, and never once wavered from her strong Christian values.

And my grandmother did it at a time in history when women were generally considered incapable.

Shane doesn’t know that my own mother showed me the jar trick. He doesn’t realize that from that day forward, I felt empowered.

Shane doesn’t know that the simple act of opening a stuck jar is a testament that women can do anything – and everything. We can tackle tasks that, once, seemed impossible.

Still, I think he will remember the trick. Shane likes tricks.

And I think Dylan probably remembers the jar trick, even though I’m not there to remind him. And I think he remembers the other stuff I told him about how to do things.

I don’t know which things my kids will choose to do the way I did. But I can hope – with as much hope as I am able to muster – that I’m leaving them a positive example of how to live a life, like my grandmother and mother left to me.

Go Get Your Shoes.

I keep thinking about when Dylan was eight, nine – maybe ten, and a recurring situation that happened nearly every day.

Dylan would be in the kitchen, finishing his meal or done building with his toys. It would be time to go – somewhere – and I’d say, “Dylan, go get your shoes.” And Dylan would go upstairs, presumably to get his shoes.

But then Dylan wouldn’t come back.

Sometimes I would call him back downstairs, and he’d meet me in a flash – still in bare feet, or socks – with a book in his hand, or a toy, or a shirt. Sometimes it was his shirt that he’d taken off. But he didn’t have his shoes.

Sometimes I would go upstairs, and I couldn’t find him. He’d be in another room entirely, nowhere near his shoes, inventing a new way to shoot paper clips down the hall or sorting rubber bands in the dry bathtub.

Sometimes I would go upstairs and he’d be in his room near the shoes. These were exciting moments for me – until I realized that he was actually digging through a pile of monster trucks that he’d found under his bed and had no intention of getting his shoes.

We were always late; Dylan was always late. He rarely, if ever, got his shoes when it was time to get his shoes. And he never put them on fast enough to get to where we needed to be on time.

Eventually, as he got older, he learned to throw his shoes and socks in the car and put them on as he rode.

Ten years went by in an instant.

Dylan came home from college for Christmas and suddenly, we were late for everything again. Bill, Shane and I would be sitting around with our coats on, and Dylan would be doing something – no idea what – but he wouldn’t be ready to go.

Dylan’s version of “getting ready” is to be awake and then spend three hours doing whatever he wants, which may or may not include a 45-minute shower, wearing shorts and flip flops in a snowstorm, or texting 75 of his closest friends – all while we wait.

I have no idea how much of his behavior is related to ADHD, and how much is related to me spending the first 18 years of his life waiting, and reminding, and prodding.

I wonder sometimes if I had said, “Go get your shoes” and then gotten in the car – would he have shown up? Would he have come back with those shoes immediately – could he have come back with those shoes immediately? Or would I still be sitting in the car all these years later, while Dylan does whatever Dylan gets distracted doing – while the rest of the world whirls around him?

Maybe it’s worse now, since he’s had no one prodding him for four months. Or maybe it’s the same, and I’d just forgotten how it went back when he lived at home full-time.

And of course, no matter how frustrating it was, I love him and I miss him terribly already.

But I do wonder how he ever makes it out the door of his dorm room.

Come ON Guys!

Over the winter break, we went to admire the holiday lights.

Since it was dreadfully cold, we decided to do the drive-through lights, rather than walking. So we took the dog and piled into the car.

Of course, the entire world had that same idea at exactly the same time. When we got near the entrance, we saw that the line to get into the park was at least a mile long.

“Should I try to go around it?” Bill asked. Bill has a knack for finding his way and, even if he gets lost, finding the best way.

“Sure,” I said – and he did. And we got around at least an hour’s worth of traffic, and joined the line just inside the park entrance.

I remember when driving through Christmas lights was an idyllic experience. We’ve driven through the holiday lights at least ten times, and I remember it fondly – the kids standing with their heads sticking out of the sun roof, funny light-up animals jumping over our car, Bill and I glancing at each other with laughing eyes, relishing every moment.

But this year, it was different. We turned on the Christmas music and drove peacefully through, but this is what I heard from the backseat:

Listening to Christmas music reminds me of death and murder.

Yeah, I’ve seen too many horror movies.

They should put all the lights together in one place so we wouldn’t have to drive for so long to see them all.

That teddy bear is never going to be able to put the star on the tree. He’s been there for 18 years and he just can’t do it! He’ll never do it!

Oh my God, I hate this song.

Meanwhile, as my teenage boys groaned in the backseat, minivans passed us with nine-year-olds sticking their heads out of the sunroofs – kids who were smiling and waving and eyeing the lights with sheer joy.

“Merry Christmas!” the little kids squealed with delight as we passed.

This sparked a new wave of upset from the teens.

I hate when people say Merry Christmas and it’s not even Christmas day.

Everybody’s just saying ‘Merry Christmas’ and it sounds so fake!

The magic of the season was lost on my teenagers. The joy, the fun, the delight was completely void.

But my least favorite quote of the evening came from the front seat, from my own husband, who was driving the car through all of the sparkling wonder as the kids grumbled and grunted and laughed heartily at themselves.

As I tried to ignore the complaints and enjoy the sparkles, Bill whacked his hand on the steering wheel with a semblance of anger.

Come ON guys! God damn!

Bill not only spoke the loudest and only swear word of the night, but he took the Lord’s name in vain right in the heart of the most joyous Christian holiday of the year.

And it made absolutely no difference to the boys, who may not even have heard him.

I am not sure we will drive through the lights next year.

But I bet, someday, my boys will delight in taking their own kids through those same lights. I envision my boys as adults, waving my grandchildren’s arms high above their heads, singing Merry Christmas! at all the passing vehicles and smiling broadly, with all the sincerity of the Pope himself.

And the little ones will squeal and laugh as the teddy bear tilts and bobs, never quite reaching with the star to the top of that lit-up Christmas tree.

Happy New Year!

I’ve just had the happiest little New Year’s Eve I can remember.

Dylan took pity upon us old folk, and went with us to karaoke. He sang a song with me, which was so fun for me, since he sings so beautifully. Then he sang a song of his own, which was also especially fun for me. Listening to Dylan sing is one of my favorite pastimes.

But then Dylan was done singing, and we were all sitting around with our dirty dishes in front of us, wondering how long we wanted to wait until Dylan sang again. He didn’t want to sing at all – but he talked us into going home and having our own makeshift karaoke party.

So we did. We sat around and sang songs with the TV karaoke. We sang Jingle Bell Rock and it was really fun – and Shane sang Let It Snow like a pro!

And then we played Game of Things, which we love, and my parents were there, which made it a perfectly wonderful party. We laughed – a lot – and had tons of fun, and before 10 p.m., we were all done with our little awesome party.

Dylan leapt up and left, since he had friends awaiting. My parents went home. Shane went to his room. And Bill and I are sitting down to watch a little TV until the ball drops at midnight. Maybe Shane will join us for the big drop.

It was really a fun night. Happy New Year!

This Can’t Be Happening Today.

On Christmas Eve I awoke slowly and, while still lying in the center of my bed, opened my eyes.

I nearly screamed. With complete shock, I realized I was falling rapidly – I’m falling out of bed! The entire room was spinning so fast, I thought I might vomit. I quickly shut my eyes, and the sensation stopped.

Vertigo.

It had been years since I’d last felt it – years since I knew what to do to help myself. I couldn’t move.

The short definition of vertigo is that, thanks to an inner ear issue, a sufferer feels like the whole world is spinning. It makes it nearly impossible to stand, walk, bend or even look down. And it lasts for an absolutely indefinite time.

It’s Christmas Eve, I thought. This can’t be happening today.

And it was, by far, the worst vertigo I had ever experienced.

I heard a noise outside my door, so I called for help. Dylan appeared.

Thank you, God, for Dylan.

With his help, I sat up. He walked me to the bathroom – and back.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’re just old,” he said.

Eventually I remembered that I might need a doctor to do the Epley maneuver – a tried-and-true approach to removing crystals from the inner ear canal. It worked beautifully, but I couldn’t do it alone.

Bill was at work, but Dylan could drive me to the doctor. So I called the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist who saved me from this exact condition many years ago.

“We can’t see you today,” said the receptionist who obviously just didn’t want to talk to me. “We close at noon. You can just go to the hospital.”

As if the hospital – any hospital – would be the place to go for the Epley maneuver.

I wanted to shout at her: It’s Christmas Eve! I can’t get out of bed! And you’re telling me you won’t even TRY to help? But I said, “Okay,” and hung up.

I sat in my bed for a long, long time. Bill came home and tried to do the Epley maneuver based on the internet description, which definitely did something – meaning I definitely had vertigo – but it didn’t fix the problem.

I did the Foster somersault next – many, many times – also from the internet. I could do it alone, and YouTube claimed it was the best. But by the time the Christmas Eve candlelight service rolled around, I was barely able to brush my teeth, let alone get up and go out.

I missed church. I was a damper on the Christmas Eve festivities with the family. I couldn’t make the salad – my only contribution – for dinner.

I did Foster somersaults many times in the middle of the night, to no avail. And I prayed for a Christmas miracle. But on Christmas morning, it was only a tad bit better. I could walk around, as long as I didn’t move my head, so I just focused hard on each boy as he opened his presents.

And then I made sure I had a wall near my left shoulder whenever I walked, because I was likely to fall over if I didn’t.

It’s two days past Christmas now, and I am better. I am not well, but I can turn my head slowly and I fed the dog today without help. I don’t know when the residual effects will go away.

But I am sitting up and able to type. So that’s a step in the right direction – and I’ll take it.