Julie Asks – Am I an Adult Yet?

This morning on the elliptical machine, my friend Amy told me of a (slightly) off color joke she had received via email from, of all people, her mother in law.  I cannot recall the specifics (because, as has become the norm, I was awoken by Georgie at 3:30 in the morning, thereby rendering me just shy of a blithering idiot) but suffice to say, it was of a (slightly) sexual nature.  Despite nearing her 29th wedding anniversary, Amy was clearly thrown, just a bit, by having been on the receiving end from this particular sender.  She’s an old lady! (Not Amy, but her mother in law…)

At that moment I had a rush of reality come over me.  I suddenly became acutely aware that, God willing, I will be the mother in law one of these days and, God willing, I will still have enough mojo to find humor in off color jokes.  Making it harder still to imagine is my sheer exhaustion from Georgie’s constant nocturnal (3:30 a.m., to be precise) awakenings which seem reserved solely for me.  How will this child ever grow up to be a man, or even a teenager?  Armed with the knowledge that, like an infant who needs to be fed in the middle of the night, this a phase that will conclude (it will, right?) it seems as unlikely and foreign to me as does being a mother in law.  My reality is such that I can only equate it to the first three months of a baby’s life when you find yourself completely convinced that you will be warming bottles up every four hours for the rest of your natural life.   I know intellectually that this is a (horribly obnoxious) phase, yet emotionally,I am fried.  At this moment I am quite certain I am going to be awoken at 3:30 a.m. until the day I become a mother in law and then the torch will be passed to the nice young lady to whom he has become betrothed.

Until such time, I am hopeful not only that I will maintain my sanity and sense of humor, but  that I will somehow manage to keep my anger, frustration, exhaustion, resentment and increasing gray hair from getting the better of me.   I’ve said it before and am quite confident I will say it again: Georgie is very lucky to be as cute as he is…

Thoughts on a beautiful Tuesday morning…

1. This morning Georgie, aged seven, awoke with a, um, er, boner.  Upon noticing it, he grabbed it, smiled and, while jerking it around said, “cool, like a video game!”  He makes me so proud.

2. Not only has Swine Flu landed at my school, it has landed on my street.  Well, not exactly my street, but two street down which, as far as I am concerned, it close enough.

3. Sunday night we went out for $300 worth of sushi (we had our mothers in tow).  Monday morning the scale told me I weighed 3.8 lbs more than I had on Sunday morning.  I prayed hard that it was the salt.  I was extraordinarily elated this morning when the scale returned to my normal weight.  Phew.

4. Tomorrow I am collecting my niece from her freshman year at Brown and delivering her to Logan for her trip back to Los Angeles.  My brother asked me if I would mind since a car service would be $130 plus tip.  I agreed to do it for $110.

5. I am going to buy myself a new printer/scanner today.  Then I plan to humiliate people on Facebook with pictures from the 80s.

6. Georgie has officially mastered riding a bike.  Except going up hills.  Or down hills.  But he can stop.

7. The “Hour of Power” I took at the gym today is likely going to result in “24 Hours of Pain” tomorrow. 

8. I actually like the salt free whole grain Melba Toast. 

9. It makes me happy when a store sells loose clementines and doesn’t force you to buy a whole crate.

10. Neither of my kids has ever had to use their last initial at school. Not a lot of Harrisons and/or Georges out there.

11. Having a black car sucks.  I had it washed yesterday only to have it covered in pollen today.  Not to mention the huge bird crap on the side.

12. I won’t be surprised if someday they discover that Purell causes cancer.  C’mon, you’ve thought it, too.

13. A person I know from the gym told me today that I looked hot.  So what if it was a 74 year old woman…I’ll take what I can get!

14. I have chicken marinating for dinner.  Fifty fifty chance no one will be home to eat it.

15. Some of my best conversations happen on Facebook chat.

16. I am so torn as to who I want to win “The Biggest Loser” tonight.  I’m leaning toward Mike.

17. My lunch date just blew me off.  If I didn’t know her and love her, I’d be pissed.

18. Harrison would not get out of bed this morning (or any morning, for that matter) despite knowing he had to clean the litter box before school.  Shockingly, he didn’t have time to do it.  When we got in the car to go to school he warrned me that if the cat shit all over the house it was my fault.  What?!?!

19. I think that Rich is more excited than Georgie that “The Amanda Show” is coming back to Nick.

20. Yesterday when I was picking Georgie up from “Curious Creatures” a little girl came over and suggested I wash his shirt – twice.  “Why” I asked?  Because a frog peed on him.  Ewwwww

H1N1 has landed in my town.  Okay, to be more specific, it has landed in my kids’ school.  Word got out last night when an automated call came into our homes at 6:04 p.m. (geez, did they have to call right at dinner time?) choking out the words “confirmed case” in “one of our schools”. Despite living in a town with eight K-8 and one high school, I had a feeling they were referring to ours.  That feeling was confirmed this morning when I arrived as a parent volunteer to take over recess duty while our teachers were being treated to a special luncheon in their honor. No one copped to knowing anything more about it, but “upper grade” became thematic.  As the parent of an “upper grader” (and a lower grader) I admit to getting a little wave of fear.  Not hysteria (or anything close to it) but it felt a little more real than it did prior to the infestation.

During my stint as recess cop (a nearly two and a half hour gig!) I chatted with the other recruited moms, escorted a few kids to the nurse (most were minor to non existent ailments or injuries with the notable exception of the two third grade boys who, while playing basketball, managed to collide into one another’s heads with enough force to hurl both of them to the ground – one in a sobbing heap, the other ever so macho who walked it off) and catch sight of a mom arriving in the front circle with, literally, a minivan full to the brim with Purell.  No school closings here, just dousing everyone in hand sanitizer to within an inch of their lives.

Once my duties were fulfilled, I did a quick check of my email.  Some junk, a few friendly notes from friends (including one chain letter…grrr) and one from: Baker School, Subject: H1N1 Flu Update.  Assuming it was more of the same I opened it and read that there are now two confirmed cases.  Plus one more at the high school.  Ugh.  Having learned (I’m very tenacious) who Patient Zero is (and, I have to admit, being slightly relieved that it is a child in the sixth grade which has little to no contact with my 1st and 8th graders)(and I also have to admit to my anxiety when seeing his younger sister gaily running the length of the playground oblivious to the fear she was infusing upon my psyche) I was now on a mission to not only learn who Patient 1 is, but to avoid my children becoming Patients 2 and 3.  So far, I have come up empty.  I am actually not sure that I want to know.  I was feeling pretty comfortable with the sixth grader and would prefer to enjoy the sense, albeit false, of safety.

I will also admit, but will stop short of saying it out loud, that I am considering keeping my kids home from school tomorrow.  Despite the new thinking that school closures are not necessary, the building feels more like a petri dish than I would like.  When delivering the sobbing third grade basketball injury to the nurse’s office I think I might have held my breath and I know I took a big hit of Purellon my way out the door (which I opened with my sweater over my fist).  That said, I suppose any contaminants are already smeared all over the walls, desks, tables and bathrooms of the school and that any spread has already occured.  I know that if my kids are going to get sick there is little I can do to prevent it at this point other than keeping up the handwashing and continuing to refrain from bannister licking.  Yet, I still might keep them home. 

Note: This poor kid — not only is he sick with something as repulsive sounding as Swine Flu, but he will heretofore be known as the kid who brought it to Baker School.  Someone should put a dollar in the therapy fund now…

Last night on “Desperate Housewives” Tom Scavo, the beleagured husband of tough-as-nails Lynette, confided in her that he is a “middle aged guy who doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life.”  He reluctantly confessed that he feels no passion, no drive.  He was at once ashamed, concerned and sad.  Lynette, just off of cancer treatment (with remarkably good hair) reacted sympathetically, even empathetically, to his admission.  At that moment I realized that my current state of flux is not unique to me.  In fact, it is so prevalent that they are talking about it on prime time t.v.  I am not so sure, however, that it is cocktail party talk just yet.

There is comfort, indeed, in knowing that one is not alone, even if it is only supported on a nighttime drama.  Feeling frustrated, or lonely, or anxious or, perhaps worst of all, nothing at all is the dirty little secret of being middle aged (which, in and of itself it hard to comprehend) and both the reality or perception of not having it all together seems somehow wrong…until you discover that you are, in an acceptable way, not unique.  Enough other people are sharing the struggle to the point of creating a story line on “Desperate Housewives.”

Tom’s struggle with what to do with his life is as much a function of being middle aged as it is wondering how you got to be middle aged.  We all feel (and, some of us, dress) like we are still in our twenties yet have children getting ridiculously close to that age.  When our parents were the age we are now we thought they had it all figured out.  I remember when my father was forty and his father passed away I consciously thought, “he’s all grown up, he doesn’t need a father anymore” only to discover how very wrong I was when my own father died when I was, you guessed it, forty.  Our time, energy and focus in our thirties is often consumed with the ins and outs of infancy, toddlerhood and all things child only to wake up one day and discover that we are halfway through.  No wonder we are all overwhelmed.

Add to the confusion all the extras — the economy, Swine Flu (oh, excuse me, H1N1), terrorism, the tanking of companies the likes of Chrysler, The Boston Globe and AIG, the skyrocketing and nearly prohibitive costs of college, zero tolerance policies for everything from schoolyard hugging to helmet wearing and then tell me who has the energy left to figure out the rest of their lives?  We all face enormous pressure to excel at our careers, our parenting, our philanthropy, our marriages, our appearance, our purpose.  Many of us are duped into thinking that everyone else has a firm grasp on things, only adding to our anxieties and insecurities. 

One night last week I was out to dinner with nine other women.  Between us, we have a total of 21 children, ranging in age from six to fourteen – at least one in each grade from kindergarten through eighth.  Our ages range from 39 to 49 – prime “middleagedom.”  We were seated at a long table which encouraged small conversations, but made a group discussion virtually impossible.  I happened to be right in the middle so was able to converse with each and every person there.  At a certain point, and I truly do not know how this came up, I asked a very personal question of the two women sitting across from me.  Without hesitation they responded.  Within moments, the question was put out to the remaining women, all of whom answered honestly.  (Yes, the query was of a sexual nature and no, I’m not going to tell you any more.)  But what struck me as interesting was the willingness, no, the desire, to share information.  The long table that just a moment earlier proved too spread out to support a single conversation suddenly shrunk to one not only enabling, but encouraging, a group discussion.  It was as though it was a secret of sorts which, once spoken aloud, had helped to prove or disprove your own lot in life.  It provided a comraderie which, if offered in other areas of our lives — like our feelings about being middle aged, or struggling with one thing or another – had the potential to serve as great comfort.  Yet as quick as everyone was to respond to this highly personal question, I suspect inquiries surrounding feelings of fulfillment, financial comfort or marital contentedness might not be as forthcoming.  I wondered what distinquished one intimacy from another, what delineated that fit for group consumption and that not.  And why are we all so willing to be forthcoming with some issues and not others?

“Desperate Housewives” has built its franchise around secrecy, scandal, thievery, sex and stories of the middle aged malcontent. It is also wildly popular.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.