tonight the moon

made me cry.

I left to take an envelope that needed to be postmarked tomorrow to the post office, just to make sure. When I got out of our cul-de-sac and onto the street that pulls onto a larger and busier street, I looked left—which is east. I looked west, and the very end of the sunset was lingering on the mountains across the lake, but I looked left again because: the moon. It had just barely made it over Cascade mountain and was a wedge of just-barely-light behind the thinning clouds. I turned left and, as I drove east, the clouds disappated and there was the moon, full, and enormous the way it is when it first rises.

I have been heartsore lately. Perhaps this story explains why. Last week I was at the scrapbook store, waiting for some layouts to be scanned, and a woman in her late fifties struck up a conversation with me. She asked how old my kids were, and when I said I had three teenagers, she literally touched me. She put her hand on my shoulder and she said, with the greatest compassion I've felt from a complete stranger in perhaps ever, "Oh my. Three teenagers all at once. That is tough on your self esteem and on your soul."

Don't get me wrong. I love my kids with all my heart. I am blessed beyond measure that they are really great kids. I've always held the opinion that so long as they make it through high school without completely melting down like I did, we'll call that successful teenageness and move on, and I think we will achieve that. (Knocking on wood, crossing fingers, watching out for black cats and being wary of ladders.)

But adolescence is hard. It's hard on everyone, as what happens to one person in a family really happens to the entire family. I love them and I want them to be happy but I also desperately want to form a relationship with them that will last longer than the time they leave for college. I want them to want to have me in their lives but where I am, standing outside that wall that teenagers are so adept at building, it feels like they won't. That I will let each one of them fly away, but they won't fly back.

So: heartsore. And that moon, somehow, the way it grabbed the very last light from the sunset and seemed to melt the clouds with it, even though it was that cold, distant light the moon has—I don't know. I can't say how, or even why, exactly, but it made everything in me that was tight and quivering, dry and desperate, liquefy. It was that beauty is impartial; it exists in the face of misery or joy. It was that it was so far away. It was that it was light. 

It gashed me open and everything melted out and all I could do was pull over and look at the moon and have a good cry.

Comments

[Janeal Smith]

I just barely emerged from the "three teenagers" stage of my life...my oldest daughter turned 20 last month. I continually feel that same desperate yearning for a lasting relationship with each of them. This summer my daughter will get married, my son will graduate from high school and immediately leave on a mission, and my youngest has built up a very high teenager wall. The lady in the scrapbook store was absolutely correct, teenagers do take a toll on your self esteem and soul. I pray every day that each of them will want to "fly back" to me someday. Thank you for sharing your life experiences. I relate to so much of what you write, it touches my heart and helps me not to feel quite so alone. I think a good cry might be just what I need too.

[Becky]

Ah, big hugs. This post scares me - I am so close to having a teenager! You have great kids, but even great kids can be hard on their parents. Hang in there!

[Michele]

I know these words may see empty, but it will be okay. The efforts you make now, even though they seem in vain, will come back tenfold when your kids are a little older. Just hang on and love them now. Try to believe me!!

[Kim]

I know that feeling, that they will fly but won't fly back. You are the Mama and always will be, and they will always love you, each in their own way. It's hard, isn't it, to push them out of the nest? I dreaded it for so long, and it happened last August. My one and only child left for college halfway across the country. He's not available to Skype every week, and I go days without hearing from him, but the long, tight hug I get when he walks back in the door speaks volumes. We may not have the relationship I want, just like my relationship with my mom is not the relationship I want. But I know he will always love me. It's up to me to make sure we keep the connection, and I will. And though sometimes I'll cry, as you probably will too, I will be so proud of this adult I had a part in making and raising. Life is about change. I know you wish you could freeze time and keep them with you. But if you did that you'd miss the joys of knowing and liking them as adults. You'd miss grandchildren and the other joys to come. All you can do is love them, make memories with them and then set them free. My thoughts are with you.