Slaying our dragons
Slaying Our Dragons
Quitting smoking, leaving a forty-year marriage, slaying a green-eyed monster… complicated challenges taking me years to accomplish. Day-to-day living, even with occasional unforeseen curveballs exploding in my personal space. Daunting, yes, but I found strength somewhere, sometimes just giving it up to a higher power.
Making it to old age is a good thing, isn’t it? Many don’t get that choice, others leave us too soon, and some choose to give up. As we age, life doesn’t magically get better. There are hidden dangers of another sort waiting to challenge us. They don’t take away our stoves for no reason; there must be a dead senior somewhere, don’t you think?
Forgetfulness is a real dilemma, as is walking on ice or any uneven surface. Sometimes, even just walking, now where was I? hmmm…
Chances are, if you have gotten to my age, I’m pretty sure you have slayed your own share of dragons. We are the generation that invented drinking and driving, smoking packs of cigarettes along the way, and LSD was our friend. We smoked in airplanes, too! How many can say that?
Horrified, we witnessed our kids fall down the stairs in those baby walker thingys. TV was our babysitter, gratefully parking them in front of it to watch violent cartoons. What was that giant’s name, shit… he had a rooster named Rusty? Feeding them baby food that contained pesticides. Sugar was our friend. Here, have some more sugar pops or fruit loops.
Living with all those terrible things that we did to our kids. Oh, and don’t worry, we won’t soon forget that stuff; our kid’s secret joy is in reminding us, (in front of anybody btw) “I hid all of mom’s wooden spoons!” is my daughter’s favorite expose’ “all the ones that weren’t broken, from hitting me.” oy…
I feel like such a loser when she brings that up, btw I never broke a wooden spoon on her, ever! I shoulda used a broom, I guess, witch that I am, then she could have a really good story. My son, the favorite one, so she says, just didn’t challenge me the way she did. She was my firstborn and always my favorite. I let her live, didn’t I?
The forgetfulness is real, and my secret fear is Alzheimer’s or dementia, which assaults me right this minute. What did I sit down here to write about? Hmmm, I wanted to write about my successes, and out come my failures, go figure! Why is it we judge ourselves by our children anyway? It’s true, my children can make or break me.
Sometimes I feel like my daughter hates me, and my son just wants me to shut up. It’s really hard for me to keep my mouth shut; sometimes I say things without thinking. Writing stuff down helps to sort through my thoughts and helps me make sense of what I want to say. Unfortunately, we can’t text during our conversations at the dinner table. Or can we?
This digital age is taking away our conversations. Why phone when you can text? Instead of face-to-face, we can text what we want to say. This could take the sting out of a bad choice of words, or words that came out wrong, or even misconstrued.
My almost three-year-old granddaughter’s latest to me is “I don’t like nana!” Well, that sure hurt, and being the adult that I am, I told her I didn’t like her either. Now, if she could text, I would have just sent her ugly faces, but I sent her to her room instead ‘to think about it.’ This is how I disciplined her dad; he is getting even with me now, drawing an imaginary zipper across his mouth when he wants me to shut up.
To be fair, my granddaughter doesn’t like her mom sometimes either, so she is definitely going through the terrible twos. I wonder how my oldest daughter feels about her parenting now that her two kids are grown up and away from home. Does she sometimes feel like a failure, I wonder? What could I have done differently… I just don’t know.
My success or failure as a parent is not what I had in mind to write about, but here it is, warts and all. Our generation of women accomplished a lot, most while holding down full-time jobs as well. Our focus should always be on our achievements and our victories, even if we are the only witnesses to the dragons secretly slain, all by ourselves.
I am a mom and a nana, and even if I sometimes feel I should do more, well, you know what? I do the best I can with what I have, inside of me : ) My love for my family, especially my grandkids, even the one that doesn’t like her nana, has no limits.
“When you know better, you do better,” famous great words from Maya Angelou.
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November 20th, 2019