This past weekend I did quite a few notable things:
I went without misplacing anything.
I drove using a GPS and didn’t miss a single turn.
I carried several thoughts through to their logical conclusions.
I avoided exploding in a frustrated eruption of scalding profanity.
I breathed slowly and deeply several times.
These things are notable because they have been happening less and less frequently in recent years.
I’d long since chalked it all up to middle age; to the beginning of the gradual deterioration of my faculties (perhaps the early arrival of senility) and I resigned myself to the growing mental fogginess and ever-present irritability.
That’s why this weekend was such a welcomed reversal, with the perpetual haze suddenly being lifted, as if my brain was swiftly Benjamin Buttoning back toward youth. For a second I thought I’d experienced a minor miracle.
Then I figured out what happened: I was a temporarily childless parent with a 3-day pass; a weekend furlough from my usual role and responsibilities—and a silent hotel room.
I’d been on the road traveling without my kids, and my mind (no longer incessantly battered by the turbulent waves of a million questions and screams and queries) was getting its groove back. There were no messes to attend to, no brawls to break up, no histrionics to diffuse. My thoughts weren’t derailed by countless crises and breakdowns and freak outs.
And for a brief moment I exhaled and reveled in my recaptured mental dexterity and in the serenity of my own head space. Soon though I realized: I really miss them. I miss their noise and their chaos and their effortlessly manufactured urgency. I miss the unpredictable storm that is my kids.
It turns out that this is where the magic is as a parent.
From the moment your children are born it begins: the sleep deprivation, the worry, the ever-growing list of stuff to do and decisions to make, and the second by second fight not to screw things up, even though you know for certain you will.
It’s definitely nice to get a short respite from all of that, but if you’re like me, before too long you find yourself wanting it all back. The silence that initially feels like rest soon becomes loneliness and isolation—and then you can’t wait to see them again. This is the paradoxical madness of parenting.
During family visits my dad used to say of my kids, “They suck the life out of you!” but he always said it with a wink and a smile. He adored every exhausting, agenda-wrecking second of it. I reckon I do too. I consider it the tax on parenting.
I’ll gladly take the haze. I’ll accept the slack of sleep, the memory loss, and the mental miscues, because the trade-off is that I get to be Daddy to these needy, energy draining, interruption creating, attention taking beauties.
Whatever kind of crazy they make me, it’s well worth it.
Who needs clarity, rest, and quiet when I get the annoying, relentless love that makes every grueling, ordinary day worth struggling through. I get to be the cheerleader, caregiver, story maker, and boo-boo kisser for two spectacular human beings who somehow see me as capable and deserving of it all. It’s an honor to be counted worthy of the task, even if it comes with less sleep, less exercise, less space, less silence and less sanity than I’d have gotten otherwise.
So Moms and Dads, take heart.
You may indeed be losing a step.
You may be acquiring the fuzzy thinking and lapses of memory that age brings with it.
You may be regularly experiencing terribly premature Senior Moments.
But it may not be as bad as all that. In fact, more likely it’s pretty darn wonderful.
Parents, you may not be losing your mind after all—you may just have children.
Be encouraged.
