Reconciling Seven

I remember seven.

I remember plastic bobbled ponytails and faded iron on t-shirts and socks with colored bands around my calves.

I remember dancing with my friend in front of her record player, the Bee Gees pumping night fever, night fever, we know how to do it. And collapsing into bean bags chairs, gulping down Kool Aid out of sticky McDonald’s glasses.

I remember roller skating, crunching over sandy sidewalks, rolling around and around the playground while my brother pushed his cars in the sandbox.

I remember cramming into the back of my parent’s station wagon with friends, a faded green swimsuit, powdered rubber swim caps, piling and pushing each other out and lining up in front of a freezing swimming pool.

I remember testing out a quick kiss with a boy named Matt under the jungle gym and wondering what the big deal was.

I remember speeding through the neighborhood on a banana seat bike with glittery orange and pink fringe whipping in the wind from the tips of my handlebars.

I remember car trips and train trips and camping with my family. I remember Disneyland and climbing trees and learning how to dive under waves at the ocean. I remember figuring out how to wash my own hair and standing on a chair backed up to the sink helping my mother wash dishes. I remember asking if driving a car was fun and what it felt like to be tall. I remember believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa, kind of.

I remember being seven.

And now my oldest child is turning seven.

I know memories are being created and carefully slotted into his mind everyday. And I know I am charged with tending to his childhood, tilling his experiences, allowing him to grow and be and explore and eventually remember it all. Hopefully fondly.

But in a mind blowing, “this is the meaning of life” kind of way, my seven does not seem that long ago. Only a few years back even. The taste of Kool Aid and feel of ponytails and fun of climbing trees and trust and wonderment and identity of seven only just happened. It seems.

Yet now here’s his seven. His childhood has arrived.

This small boy who I gave birth to on a rainy May evening is now experiencing his world in ways that will create the person he will become. And while fighting off my own self indulgent tendencies to insist that I am still a child in fact and any child of mine could not possibly be… seven. While I’m doing plenty of that, I hold tight and steady myself. It’s on me to make sure that his seven counts. That these years are good years that he will look back on and laugh and wonder and ask who remembers Wii and the 2010 Tampa Rays and Little League and chocolate milk after school and popcorn during Friday night movies and swimming for hours at the local swimming pool.

His seven is right here, right now.

But my seven is still here too, reminding me what it means, what really matters, and insisting that I cherish all of what seven should be about.

I wonder. Has he ever heard the Bee Gees cranked at full volume? It may be time that he does.