It’s a tough time of year for many of us. You may be transitioning from multiple weeks of unstructured children lounging around the home, summer camping (from 9-12), and raging behavior as the siblings fought to no end. You may feel frustrated that the weight of it all fell on you. You may have your own responsibilities outside the home, as well as in it and all around it, particularly if you enjoy outdoor gardening. Fear not, because the start of school has commenced.
It's Monday at 9:44 AM in early August. Kara and I are texting about our respective children’s first day of school drop offs. Her daughter was so excited, she could hardly stand it. She let her mother walk in with her, but with the understanding that distance had to be maintained. Her son had trouble letting go of her leg at preschool drop off. He begged to know, “How many days until the weekend?”
My two sons wanted to ride their bicycles to elementary school, so my husband dropped my daughter off at her separate preschool. As we rode, I blew an exasperated sigh because my eldest was doing his darndest to convince my sensitive middle child to “try to ride his bike with no hands!” This is something he has probably never attempted.
My mind flashes back to last year, when he had bike accidents on the way to school during his kindergarten year. His tires shifted, he collapsed to the side, and he began crying as he maneuvered his little body out from under the hunk of metal that suddenly became my nemesis. My body began to ache, my mind in a sort of mild agony, as I felt his discomfort and embarrassment. We stood his bike up and assessed his skinned knees. When we made it to the gate, I asked the kind teacher there to get him to the nurse’s office to get patched up. Wet tears mixed with dirt, he trudged off, no goodbyes.
I shake the memory out of my head, knowing it’s unhelpful to soak in the past. “C, please, let’s not do that today.” I silently beg that this will be the first time he listens to me– the first time–this whole summer.
But he doesn’t. He listens to his older brother and removes both hands from the handle bars. Something inside my soul dies a little bit at that moment. I want to cry because I’m not being heard. He’s not listening to me. Time and time again. And he’s going to get hurt as a result. Then I’ll be the one to pick up the pieces. Impatiently. With an edge to my voice. Why can’t they just listen to me? It’s a vortex of parenting pain, one that I'm finding hard to climb out of.
I watch him hover his hands in the air as he steadies his bike long enough to prove to his older brother that he can, in fact, ride without holding on. As he returns to gripping the bars, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“I need Lexapro in my coffee,” I think to myself. Suddenly, life feels really hard. I swallow back a lump in my throat, drop off the kids at school, and take the long ride home, sans noise. I pass a school bus idling in a quiet parking lot. I know this bus. The woman who drives it parked here every morning before beginning her pick up loop last year. She folds a pillow over the steering wheel and leans forward on it for a morning nap. I always wonder about her and want to say hello, to make some sort of meaningful connection, but her window is closed and she is sitting so high up and the engine is loud. So, I ride on.
The ride is a solemn one. There is an urge to be seen, understood, appreciated.
Kara asks me how my youngest’s first drop off day was. She is starting preschool at the same school she has been at for the past four years.
“I missed it, we had to split up so the boys could ride their bikes,” I reply, and something in me hurts again. A feeling of wanting to be there for it all, but simply can’t.*
She replies:
“The boys will remember you riding with them.”
Something about this statement causes a rush of tears. Someone sees what matters to me, to us, and it’s liberating and frightening in one explosive release. I’m fearful to show raw emotion, specifically when it comes to my own children. Maybe it’s because we have to be the strong ones. And what do we do when we aren’t feeling so strong?
I press pause on the existential question of a mothering soul in crisis and prepare for a journey to Denver for a quick overnight trip. Frankly not into the idea of traveling across the country again, as I had just done a quick 48 hours in Vegas to watch the Backstreet Boys at the Sphere (cannot recommend enough), I pack for the trip slowly while my daughter curls up on my unmade bed and watches Beauty and the Beast. I think to myself how many decisions we make as parents on the daily that do not include the self as top of mind, or priority. And how that is basically required when we enter the contractual agreement of parenthood. And how it's still hard to make them at times.
I walk onto the nonstop flight to Denver after accidentally being the last to board (did they ever call zone 5?) and find my aisle seat. I settle in to watch a new movie, at least to me. "The Last Showgirl," featuring Pamela Anderson calls my name after I listened to a two-hour podcast conversation between Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and Jason Kelce. Taylor just announced her new album will be dropping on October 3rd, titled "The Life of a Showgirl." It seemed fitting.
Pamela's character was a longstanding fixture in Las Vegas entertainment life, secure in her place in the "Razzle Dazzle" show for decades until the announcement was made that the show was closing. In her mid 50s, with evidence of that fact scattered throughout her personality and body, she finds herself at a crossroads. Meanwhile, her young adult daughter shows up at her door, preparing to graduate college. The daughter that she decided to have when she was a showgirl. The daughter that she didn't always make the best decisions for, but she made them all the same. The daughter that she loved, and fell short with, and continued to love while also relentlessly pursuing her own dream of living life on the stage. Naturally, the daughter had feelings about that, and not pleasant ones for Pamela's character to hear or grapple with.
Finally, Pam comes out to say it. The "it" that us parents try to protect our children, and even ourselves, from. Mothers (and fathers) are just human beings, trying to do our best. Not just our best for our children, but for ourselves and our own lives, too. We are not superheroes. We are less than amazing at times, and always will be, as parenting does not allow for perfection in any facet of our lives.
I sit back in discomfort as I watch the confrontation between mother and daughter unfold on the screen. Tear up a bit as I take the last sip of my Southern Grounds coffee and hand it to the flight attendant. Think about my own mom and dad and the various ways they “rode bikes” with me.
I remember both of them supporting my soccer, between practices and out of town games. I remember my mom coming into my room to talk after I cried about a difficult day at school and comforting me on the couch when I could not sleep after I learned the Titanic sinking actually happened. I remember my dad taking me to learn how to drive on a rural road, helping me overcome my fear of higher speeds, telling me, "You control the vehicle, it does not control you." I still recite that phrase in my head today in a variety of situations. I remember mom taking us for a sweet treat at The Dairy after school and coordinating with my best friend's parents so that we could spend time together. I remember my dad maintaining a level head when we talked through a particular time I had deceived him. I remember my dad coming to my dance recitals and my mom volunteering at my school. I remember countless times they told me that they loved me and were proud of me.
Humanness, and mistakes, and redemption and disappointments and happiness and hugs. I remember them simply being there.
I remember riding bikes with them. Your children will remember riding bikes with you, too. It may be in a frenzied way, with a mildly flat tire, in a slightly irritable mood when you forgot the snacks. They'll remember it all the same.
You won’t make it to everything. You won’t always have the right words, or touch, or timing.
But, you will be there, peddling alongside your children as they navigate this big, confusing world and, at some point, they will glance over at you and smile.
*It was technically not my youngest child’s first day of preschool. Apparently, I misplaced the print out form sent home in May on their start date and just assumed she followed our public school county calendar. Her actual start date was a few days later, when I was on the Denver trip. But you know what? I’ve lived enough of this parenting life to give myself grace, text my best friends about the goof up so we could laugh it off together, and move on.
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Wow! I definitely needed to hear this right now! Thank you. Absolutely beautiful!
I feel this so deeply. As a mom I’m constantly wondering how I can show up fully to work and motherhood and balance whatever priority feels most important at the time, even though it all feels most important. And my biggest fear is they won’t remember that I was there and tried so hard to be there for it all.