The Bonus People

I've been talking to my big sister a lot this week.  She's my big sister in every way, except that she's completely unrelated to either of my parents.  She and I have a sisterly kind of relationship in that we shop, and tease, and eat out lots, and buy each other little random gifts, and laugh, MAN, we laugh!  Sometimes we're completely inappropriate considering we're grown women/mothers. We snicker at the most juvenile thoughts. (Well, that's more than "sometimes", actually.) We occasionally cry, but mostly I do, because I'm the crybaby little sister. Oh, and we shout at each other too.  She is one of the few people that I am comfortable enough with to just let stuff out as raw and uncut as I feel it, because she takes it.  She's also not afraid to dish it.  We are better for it.  The most important thing about my big sister is that she's soooooooo full of grace.  She is gentle, and thoughtful.  She thinks for days sometimes, about my questions and frustrations.  If she can't find and answer for me, she calls in the reinforcements: her husband of 21 years, her brothers, neighbor, sons... This woman is a deep well of experience and wisdom that I have been fortunate enough to draw from for 17 years- my entire adult life.

Wait, I got off topic a little, but I really wish you could meet her...  As I was saying, we've been talking about deep stuff again this week.  Nothing unusual there.  In fact, most of these conversations replay, nearly word for word, month after month- because she's just that patient with me.  Tonight as I'm laying in bed, wide awake again, I'm thinking about her response every single time I come to her with a specific angst...

Also happening this weekend, my parents are visiting.  Dad had to be in Montana on business, so the trip wasn't scheduled around us. It just happened to fall during one of my "off" weeks with my kids.  The time with just the three of us has been good, but it's strange for them to be here when their grand-kids aren't.  I've been feeling a little guilty about that for everyone. (Yes, I said "guilty" didn't I?  Well, it's the right word, so I'll leave it there.)

Okay, so now you're getting a clear-as-mud, scratch-of-the-surface view into my sleep deprived mind. Tonight it rests on the kids, and how they changed my life.  How they've changed my relationships: professionally, with friends, even with my parents.  How they will continue to impact my relationships... I can hear my big sister's angst-answering, urgent voice again: "They're your little bonus people! They are so sweet Collene...." Her voice trails off in another story she loves to tell me about my witty, goofball daughter.

I haven't been the world's most attentive mother.  Ever.  But, especially lately.  I have weeks, occasionally, that could almost qualify me for Superstar Mom status, but for the most part, I'm just proud I've kept them alive and fed.  What haunts me the most is that I've noticed, recently, how lonely they seem.  Most days I get home from work, having listened to and participated in hours and hours of chatter in and around my chair.  At home I find, in the disaster zone that has become my house, three hungry, eager, chatty children that can't wait to tell me about their day.

Mostly, from what I pick up in my half listening ears, they NEEEEED to discuss: the level he just reached in the new video game- and how, who said what naughty word on the playground, the bruise vs. Band-aid ratio she's got on her knees from skateboarding, a description of the disappointing lunch choices in the cafeteria, who messed up everything for the whole class in English, the "guy" she thinks is "hot" today at school even though he's probably going to be so gross tomorrow,  or "Mom, Mom, Mom, can I....?", or occasionally, "oh, hey Mom, don't forget to sign that"... (Obviously, I do forget, because I just told you I'm only half listening- which was me being optimistic.)

All of these conversations are great.  Unfortunately, they all happen simultaneously, before I've even taken off my coat.  Because I'm impatient and I JUST need to use the bathroom and change out of these hair-caked clothes and I'm not good at keeping up three completely different conversations at the same time, I hush them and send them all away.  There are undone chores, backpacks to pick up, a table to set and dinner to figure out, a pile of bills to sort, taxes still to finish. I'm frustrated and overwhelmed.  They don't feel like a bonus on those days.  I am burdened with my apparent inability to give them what they need and deserve. On those days time can't go fast enough.  I can't wait for bedtime, or the weekend...

Tonight, I miss them.  I WANT to hear these stories.  I love to hear the "best and worst" and everything in between like we do on my nights at dinner. On these weeks we rush in and out, dropping off and picking up...  All three of my bonus people will be gone in 8.5 years.  This school year was twice as fast as the last, quadruple the ones before.  It's imperative that somehow I figure out how to stop pushing towards, longing for bedtime, the weekend.  There are roughly only 263 weekends left until my oldest is released into his adult life.  I must stay connected, hear them, give me to them, do for them- be better than I am.