Today I turn 42. I have never had a problem with birthdays. I've never been one to lock myself in the bathroom and weep over getting older. I have always vowed that I would age gracefully, and I think I've done a pretty good job at not trying to pretend I'm younger than I am. So it was puzzling to me this year why I was so depressed about my birthday. Why the sulks? Why the water works? I have been unaccountably morose and philosophical about such an insignificant event. So today I took a day off to think about it.
And I think I figured it out. A couple of weeks ago, my life changed significantly. I was making dinner on an ordinary Thursday when my dad called to tell me that my mom had had a stroke. I cannot adequately describe how that feels when you get that call. There are many cliches, but I cannot capture it. It does not hit you all at once. Once the immediate news is digested, there are many after shocks. The bare bones news of tests and hospital room numbers do nothing to ease the blow. They are just facts to hide behind. They make flimsy and ineffectual emotional shields.
My mom is recovering. I hope she will recover completely, but she is struggling with basic skills. And I realize now that her struggle really scares me. It has been very painful to hear her slurred speech on the phone, and to know she is still unable to do basic things like walk and use her hands. It terrifies me to think of her that way. In two weeks I will be on a plane to see her, and I am scared, scared, scared. I am afraid I will cry when I see her. I am a big, fat, sissy, and I want to run away.
A great deal of my inner strength has always come from knowing I had a place to call home. No matter how much I messed up my own life, there were always people back home to take care of me. Here I am at 42 and I still want to be the child. I still want to be taken care of, to be cherished, protected, nurtured. Even as I pour out my heart to my children every day, I still want someone to do the same for me. And now I realize that my parents just can't do that for me any more. I should have realized that years ago, but time and distance blur reality for me. I can't run away from that fact now, no matter how far away I live.
This is not eloquent, it is not revolutionary, it is not even revelatory to most. But to me, this simple truth is rocking my world: I have to take care of myself. Because in the end, I'm all I have. And I have to take care of my husband, because he is all I have. And we have to take care of each other, because there is no knight in shining armor coming to save us, there is no savior parent waiting to pick up the pieces of the messes we create; there is no Superman, no happy ending, no simple and easy way out. I am the caretaker now. I am the savior. I am the wise old owl.
I am the adult.
And if I say it enough times, maybe I'll eventually believe it. And once that stops scaring the shit out of me, maybe I'll be able to act like one.
