Sweet Sweet Journey

Last weekend, several of us had a good chuckle over our 20-year-old's tub of stuff.  This is the stuff I collected over the years and stuffed into a tub with his name on the lid.

Here's the question:  Was I collecting for him, or for me?  Because I really believe that Me Then knew somehow that Me Now would desperately need to experience my very little boy again.  There was something so dreamy and so baby-powder sweet about going through this tub with my big, grown puppy.  As we drew sock after block after rattle after blanket (ginky) from the place it had been so tenderly laid many years ago, my heart hummed with a happiness only these sorts of sweet memories can call forth.  He was brand new, and four, and seven, and twelve--all at the same time.

Briefly, I believe it was the same for him.  He has only ever experienced himself in a linear way, in chronological fashion, where one event leads to another as the first vanishes behind.  Like a car trip that seems to go on forever, but doesn't really.  I believe my grown boy sensed, during our sweet journey, what I have been trying to tell him for years.  I have told him again and again, "While you experience your own life in a line, to me your life is on a canvas stretched out in front of me.  Everything is happening at once for me, yet the same events for you are coming along one at a time."

I wonder if this is why emotions run so high when things go on with our children.  When he hurts, I still want to comfort the little boy.  When he soars, I want to run along the beach holding his hand, chasing seagulls.  When he skins his knee, I want to kiss it better.  When a policeman pulls him over for doing 50 in a 35, I want to give that cop a piece of my mind.

It's good for me, I think, to keep tubs of stuff, and to go through them once in awhile. It keeps my perspective where it belongs, and helps me resist every urge to call the time my grown boy spends with his friends a play date.  It helps me allow all of them to grow and stretch and leave.

I can't decide if I'm pathetic, or if all mom's are like this...