Michael's birthday party
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Your son is how old?
I didn't start to freak out about Michael turning 21 until the day before it happened. I knew it was coming, but for some reason, it wasn't until I wrote the date out on something that it really hit me that his birthday would be the next day, he would turn 21, and I'd be the parent of an adult. How is this even possible? I'm not even an adult yet. How can I be the parent of one?
It's always like this. I remember "How can I be the parent of an elementary school-age child?" "How can I be the parent of a middle schooler?" And my favorite, "I'm not old enough to be the parent of a teenager!" These are the things they don't tell you when you go to Teen Mom School. They also don't tell you that some day your child will be older than your high school geometry teacher's child, and you'll be able to give him parenting advice. If they had told us those sorts of things in Teen Mom School, I bet there would have been a lot more people deciding they didn't want to be Teen Moms.
Being the parent of an adult feels much less threatening than any of the previous landmark birthdays, in part because Michael doesn't live with me any more. I don't have to face him on a daily basis and be reminded of how old I am (or should be). But this year in general is hard because I'll be turning 40 later in the year. Another warning they didn't give us in Teen Mom School - to plan our unintended pregnancies so we wouldn't be turning 40 the same year our child turns 21. It's just not a good combination. So once again, I'm reclaiming 38. I may have to stay here for awhile. I really like 38 - it feels comfortable, and appropriate. And really, there's not much difference between being 40 with a 21 year-old and being 38 with a 21 year-old, right? Just so long as I move on by the time I would've been pregnant at 12.
It's always like this. I remember "How can I be the parent of an elementary school-age child?" "How can I be the parent of a middle schooler?" And my favorite, "I'm not old enough to be the parent of a teenager!" These are the things they don't tell you when you go to Teen Mom School. They also don't tell you that some day your child will be older than your high school geometry teacher's child, and you'll be able to give him parenting advice. If they had told us those sorts of things in Teen Mom School, I bet there would have been a lot more people deciding they didn't want to be Teen Moms.
Being the parent of an adult feels much less threatening than any of the previous landmark birthdays, in part because Michael doesn't live with me any more. I don't have to face him on a daily basis and be reminded of how old I am (or should be). But this year in general is hard because I'll be turning 40 later in the year. Another warning they didn't give us in Teen Mom School - to plan our unintended pregnancies so we wouldn't be turning 40 the same year our child turns 21. It's just not a good combination. So once again, I'm reclaiming 38. I may have to stay here for awhile. I really like 38 - it feels comfortable, and appropriate. And really, there's not much difference between being 40 with a 21 year-old and being 38 with a 21 year-old, right? Just so long as I move on by the time I would've been pregnant at 12.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Halfway Mark
At last night's WW weigh-in I got my 15 pound bookmark - halfway to goal. And by some wondrous coincidence, the topic for that meeting was how to get motivated again after hitting a plateau or gaining back some weight. Having just spent a month being mostly off-program and not exercising, I felt really ready to jump in with my helpful comments. After all, I had just lost four pounds in a week, after a month in which I mostly maintained. I had needed to kick my own butt in order to jump-start my weight loss and exercise.
So I was getting set to be all smug and helpful about how to get motivated again, when someone said they'd been on a plateau for FOUR YEARS! Then someone else chimed in about how she got to within 2 pounds of her goal weight, and then gained most of it back and hasn't lost much (but has kept coming to meetings). Then over and over people commented on how they'd made lifetime or lost significant amounts, and then had gained it back. It was depressing.
Part of me wanted to stick my fingers in my ears so I couldn't hear them. Another part was listening with morbid fascination, noting that it could be my future. And there was another part trying to protect me, telling me that most people aren't really very smart. But it's a lot harder to believe that people are dumb when I'm looking at them. When I'm lurking in the WW chat rooms, it's easy to be dismissive of the folks who are complaining because they can't lose weight even though they've cut back on the number of times per day that they eat a Big Mac. Or who consistently write "loose" instead of "lose." But when I'm at a meeting, I tend to think of everyone as being fairly intelligent. Maybe I'm just lucky to go to a meeting with lots of fairly sharp folks. Or maybe the dorks just keep quiet. And it's certainly easier to be dismissive of someone once they start misspelling things, while people who attend meetings and never say anything remain innocent until they open their mouths.
So instead of leaving the meeting feeling great about getting halfway to my goal, I left feeling vaguely anxious about the possiblity of gaining weight back in the future, and very unhappy with how judgemental I am. I can usually talk myself out of it, but it makes me unhappy that my first response is to dismiss someone as being not very smart.
Today was a great antidote. I've heard my students in several conversations that were so far over my head that I can't even remember what they were about, walked in on a student who was going over a math problem so complex that I didn't even recognize some of the symbols, and looked through the bookshelves of several students and saw titles of textbooks that made me feel very small (one of them was Bargey's Manual of Systemic Bacteriology).
I am not that smart. I'm good at some things, but math is not one of them. Reading "The Elegant Universe" makes my head hurt. So I will now get down off my high horse and appreciate people who use six exclamation marks after each sentence when they're in a chat room.
But I made it to the halfway mark! Yipee for me!!!!!!
So I was getting set to be all smug and helpful about how to get motivated again, when someone said they'd been on a plateau for FOUR YEARS! Then someone else chimed in about how she got to within 2 pounds of her goal weight, and then gained most of it back and hasn't lost much (but has kept coming to meetings). Then over and over people commented on how they'd made lifetime or lost significant amounts, and then had gained it back. It was depressing.
Part of me wanted to stick my fingers in my ears so I couldn't hear them. Another part was listening with morbid fascination, noting that it could be my future. And there was another part trying to protect me, telling me that most people aren't really very smart. But it's a lot harder to believe that people are dumb when I'm looking at them. When I'm lurking in the WW chat rooms, it's easy to be dismissive of the folks who are complaining because they can't lose weight even though they've cut back on the number of times per day that they eat a Big Mac. Or who consistently write "loose" instead of "lose." But when I'm at a meeting, I tend to think of everyone as being fairly intelligent. Maybe I'm just lucky to go to a meeting with lots of fairly sharp folks. Or maybe the dorks just keep quiet. And it's certainly easier to be dismissive of someone once they start misspelling things, while people who attend meetings and never say anything remain innocent until they open their mouths.
So instead of leaving the meeting feeling great about getting halfway to my goal, I left feeling vaguely anxious about the possiblity of gaining weight back in the future, and very unhappy with how judgemental I am. I can usually talk myself out of it, but it makes me unhappy that my first response is to dismiss someone as being not very smart.
Today was a great antidote. I've heard my students in several conversations that were so far over my head that I can't even remember what they were about, walked in on a student who was going over a math problem so complex that I didn't even recognize some of the symbols, and looked through the bookshelves of several students and saw titles of textbooks that made me feel very small (one of them was Bargey's Manual of Systemic Bacteriology).
I am not that smart. I'm good at some things, but math is not one of them. Reading "The Elegant Universe" makes my head hurt. So I will now get down off my high horse and appreciate people who use six exclamation marks after each sentence when they're in a chat room.
But I made it to the halfway mark! Yipee for me!!!!!!
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