On Being 45

If I’m honest (and at this stage, who’s got time for b.s.?) what astounds me most is how afraid I’ve become. I try to act like I’m not, but the scrunched shoulders, clinched jaw and constant rubbing of my own neck tend to give me away. I keep telling myself it’s not who I am – not really.  I remember a me living free; certain that things would work themselves out, that people would rise to their best selves.  I believed this, and it made me, me – because it shaped how I saw life.  And people.

And for the most part that meant Trusting. Hopeful. Unencumbered.

But something changed along the way.  I got busy, distracted, otherwise engaged. People became more complicated. I got married.  That threw me off. Not the getting as much as the being.  That’s when I first noticed fear. Fear of not having enough, fear of how I’d be seen due to actions not my own, fear if I didn’t speak up – and strongly – extended members would assume their tightly held rituals were accepted in our emergent invention of us.

But I was most afraid of being lost. Forgotten. I remember early on, sitting in a packed stadium, hearing a public announcement for a woman to go to a certain section. I froze in my seat.  What if it’d been my name broadcast over the loudspeakers?  Who would recognize it, me, by my new identity? It seemed probable no one would, and that scared me.

But silent, somewhat silly fears eventually gave way to building our brand.

Again, in the spirit of honesty, let’s all agree that keeping up with the Kardashians is not nearly the novel TV as Millennials like to think.  Keeping up has propelled our great nation since its inception, and for the colossally cool and cavalier Gen X-ers, kicked in somewhere between that first job promotion and first baby. Our career of choice was “ministry” so we weren’t in any real position to compete for top of corporate ladder. (I say our because the husband and I were a two for one deal, and I use quotes because I’m pretty sure the concept is more capitalist than christian, but that’s another post for another day.) Our big bonuses came in the form of thank you letters from parents of teens gone wild gone sane again, and a starter home for us was actually just a rental. But we were doing God’s work, so we got a pass.

As for that first born child, well…

Let the games begin.

The two main schools of thought on parenting at the time were this: You could Grow them God’s Way, or you could follow your intuition. According to the God’s Way-ers, if this first piece wasn’t right, especially when it came to sleeping schedules, you’d wish for the days when Letterman or Leno was your biggest late night dilemma.

So what’s it gonna be, Deion?

Being only slightly more rebellious than compliant, I went with intuition.  And how shall I say this… a house full of first borns (myself, the hubs, and said new baby) does not an inferior opinion make. So the doubters, the flounderers, the unfortunate bearers of colicky babies were left in our parenting wake. Breast-fed or bottled, held or left to cry it out, family bed or baby’s crib, we made our own choices.  And we were killing it.  Baby number 2?

Bring. It. On.

I hesitate to call these the lost years because I know they’re there, I just can’t seem to grasp them through the fog. Or the exhaustion. Or was it the choroid plexus cysts? No, I think rotavirus; or, wait a minute, it was the scarlet fever.  Yes, that’s it. All of the above.  And just like that we went from first to worst. Confident no longer, I needed help, so help me God.  I do not do well with sickness and chaos and lack of sleep.  So I was not doing well.

Right about then, granite countertops were becoming the must have, as were vacations requiring passports and investment property. We were actually learning about a little concept called reduced pay. It happens when donations to the “ministry” are sparse. The pay does not stay the same.  It’s reduced. But good news was, those extra long hours spent fundraising, got us back to breaking even about the same time baby #2’s precarious health situation gave way to more normal activities like learning to climb. On top of things like refrigerators. I still don’t know how. I mean, he was more sumo-wrestler than mountain goat. But determined he was to make up for time spent laying in crusted remnants of his own diarrhea because glazed over mom couldn’t change the sheets fast enough.

Yeah, I missed entire seasons of American Idol.  And large chunks of my thirties. So much for keeping up.

But I hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.  The fear of watching your gently nurtured young successfully navigate the emotional highs and lows (say nothing of lean and mean) years of friendship, trumps all.

Welcome to middle school.

My kids were great; it was all their little turd friends I couldn’t deal with (insert winking emoji here).  And their parents (double wink). Dear sweet Jesus, the politics.  Again, methods were in abundance but it sorta boiled down to hovering or leaving well enough alone. I’ll tell you what’s tricky is when you are of the “leave well enough alone” camp, but all the other moms hover, it’s hard not to fear the bits of information you’ve pieced together from the parts of conversation you were sort of privy to, but since you don’t volunteer at the school, you don’t really know what kid they’re talking about and you’ve just gotten comfortable with email so the vast amounts of social media sweeping the nation are nowhere on your radar, so technically you aren’t doing all you can to know your kid’s friends (or more accurately, keeps tabs on them) — it all became so very discombobulating.

And when you only have sons, who by very nature of being male aren’t prone to long conversations dissecting the day’s activities, you fear being left out of the loop.

Forever. By yourself. Loop-less.

Again, things I never imagined I would fear on the front end of my life.  But there I was, fearing them.

Which roughly brings me to my current state.

Career change, major move, high school sports and subsequent injuries, family dogs lain to rest, the sheer magnitude of paperwork (cleverly disguised as on-line registration) that could actually qualify as full-time job status, and yes, The Great Admission — this is Super Freaking Hard and granite countertops do not a better life make — when left unchecked, can be monumentally paralyzing for a forty-something Gen X-er who used to road trip through the mountains in her stick-shift Honda sanctuary, sunroof open, windows down, Bono as her muse.

Cue the neck massage. And pale, sunless skin for fear of, you know, wrinkles melanoma.

It’s enough to make me wonder where that girl went.

Some days I think I’ll find her if I go where America’s dreams don’t register.  I picture someplace Latin because, for starters, I’d get an afternoon nap. Everyday.  Per requirement.  And ”rushing around” would cease to be the alter I sacrificed all peace of mind and body on in order to make the most of every single second.  Why America, why?  But then again, I put the Do in Dougan, so who am I to lodge complaints?

But here’s what I really think…

I grew up believing God was my actual best friend.  That’s how I looked at him. It never occurred to me to think he might leave me or not show up for me or perhaps even dislike me. I jumped into that belief feet first, cannonball style, with total abandon, and it showed up in the way I lived.

There was nothing to lose, because there was nothing to hold onto. I was the one being held.  Life – challenging, disappointing, shocking reveals all – was not my problem to solve.

I still believe God, but when the stresses of life arise, I disregard his presence, because, quite frankly, I’ve no time for foolishness like cannonballing. I tend to big toe our relationship, test the water, then maybe if I’m feeling up for it, allow myself a lap or two during the sanitized minutes of adult swim.

That’s how my faith has looked for awhile, which I dare say isn’t faith at all. It’s control, disguised as caution, better known as fear.   I’ve approached God as if he’s somehow become less capable, maybe even less loving, so I handle my stuff; I do what I can to contain the what if’s.

At a certain point, even I can see I’ve micro-managed-macro-stressed the joy out of a really good life, and that’s not God’s fault, if I’m being honest, and that’s what we agreed. To be honest.

At mid-forty, I want to live like the girl I know I really am.

Trusting. Hopeful. Unencumbered.

In a word, Free.