I cannot change the fact that my son has grown into a young man, I cannot change the fact that my mother is 96 and that one day she will die, I cannot change the fact that I am getting older, and that all the people that I will see at my reunion are getting older. We are on the down side of life; we are not fresh and new anymore. Yes, we can reinvent ourselves and we do. We decide we are going to be authors, photographers, moviemakers, golfers, whatever, so in a sense we are just beginning. They say as we age, life gets better. There is a reason behind the term "Golden Age." We can finally relax, do those things we always wanted to do but never had time. But we are not youth. Try reinventing yourself in a field full of young people. We are their parents, no doubt about it. It's tricky, navigating those waters, trying to be the emeritus without being mom. To be the person with life experience that folds easily into the work.
"Geez, look at she can do," they say puzzling over some class project that you completed right along with the youngest of them. "Really, she did that? But she's my 'mom'" I took a stage lighting class last semester at a local community college, part of an effort to learn more about the inner workings of theater. We had to make spotlights out of coffee cans, soddering them together with yes, a soddering iron. Certainly, a piece of equipment I'd never had in my hands before.
"It must be all the crotchet projects I've done in my life," I said as I patiently melted sodder along the seam of the two cans, and what a seam it was. Bumpy, yes, but near as perfect as though I'd been handling a soddering iron all my life. Eyes were popping in astonishment all around me because though I don't seem old from my point of view, I'm ancient to my fellow students. Play that one out carefully, joke about it, joke about my kids, try to fit in but in the end they are youth, they win. They get to go out into the world and make their way but I am done. I am at the top of my hill looking down, not at the bottom of my hill looking up.
Remember, I am the one who gets thrown out of the lifeboat first, older, expendable, not viable, useless, unless of course, I am smart and spunky. Ignore my aching back and feet, use my head, and come up with a work around, then perhaps they will miss the fact that I am their 'mother'. I'll just become a slightly wrinkled, slightly bottom heavy, pear-shaped member of the group. I'll never be hip, though if I swear a bit, it buys a few points. Sometimes, they even ask me questions, as though maybe I know a thing or two, as though I have been around the block a few times. There has been the occasional unburdening, the sharing of a lost opportunity, a lost love, a desire. Those moments I savor. Maybe they won't throw me out of the lifeboat after all.
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