In the past, I thought forward. I considered and dreamed about my so very dear adult-life. The man I would marry. I wrote lists of names for my children. I sighed about where we would live.  I would wonder how they would look. My so very perfect, just-so life.

And I said I would take my children to The Nutcracker someday. When *I* was a mother. And they would, of course, love it as much as I did.

That day came last week. My son had seemed interested so now, at 8, I decided it was time he went. But at 38, I try not to get too caught up in romanticising what I will do with my children anymore. Things change, kids don’t like what you did a lot of the time, real-life isn’t so make-believe. But I bought the tickets and I took him. We held hands. We walked along the Riverwalk before the show. We sat and read the program and ate cough drops together and giggled about how we couldn’t stop coughing. When the lights went down and he heard the music, he smiled. And he turned to me. He got it right away. He loved it like I had. This was something special for him, too.

Suddenly I became far too aware that the future that I had day-dreamed about for so many years is happening right now. There are no more second chances, there no do-overs. This is it. My life. My adult life. And these are my children doing some of the things I dreamed and many that I didn’t.

This Christmas season has brought lots of difficult news. Apart from some things that I have written about, two friends have been diagnosed with breast cancer (one being one of my closet college friends), there are friends with very sick relatives, some with new concerns about their children, others who have had miscarriages, and others who have lost jobs. And while things remain blessedly peaceful and healthy in my life, there is a lot of coping and getting through the season happening all around me.

Again, it is very clear to me that every hope and dream for the future is so very very uncertain.

So, I don’t want to look forward so much anymore. I don’t want to think about what will happen in my dreamy little grown-up world. And I don’t want to think about what could have been or how things used to be. I want to grab hold of the present and BE entirely in it.

I want to tie myself to this very moment and experience it and let every taste and sound and feeling sink right on in. I don’t want to miss a thing, I want my eyes wide open to it all.

There will never be another first time I get to take my oldest child to The Nutcracker. So I sat in the theater and held his hand and watched him watch and laugh and listen and clap loudly. It was perfect and everything right now needs to be.

This, my life, is happening right now. This Christmas, this time when both of my children still believe in Santa and shamelessly dance “Christmas is almost here” dances in the hallway together, in Spider-man jammies… this is happening RIGHT NOW. 8 and 5 turns into 9 and 6 next year. And on it goes.

I cherish every Christmas past. I hope for many Christmases in the future. But I am living and breathing this Christmas present. I have what I have right now — and it is a gift.

To inspire little boy smiles for our family Christmas card, we pretended to pick my 8yo’s nose.

(Now I kind of wish I had “picked” this one for our card… har har.)

Sure, sure. I know. The term “mullet” is most certainly synonymous with certain 80′s flashback films and is one that folks tend to use in… ahem… jest. But that is not what I am doing here. No jesting at all, I promise you, so please read on.

Simon Le Bon

My dear Simon, you made the mullet HOT. You wore it so well back then. So well, in fact, that’s why people like my husband and other 30-something men who grew up around that era thought it was a good idea in the first place. It was cool as hell, and a little punk rock. It was toying with androgynous, probably somehow inspired by early 80′s Bowie, which pushed the envelope and challenged the norm. And women everywhere got all hot and bothered over breath-taking men with subtle (or not so subtle) women’s features. Like longish, well-styled hair. And that was a little crazy and dangerous and something our fathers did NOT like. And there was nothing wrong with that! Nothing wrong at all.

Sigh.

Ok, let me get to the point I am trying to make. I am thrilled to be one of the Duran Social bloggers and will be *giddily* attending your concert in Clearwater next Monday. My previously mullet-sporting husband will be there with me (after listening to HIS Duran Duran “best of” CD in the car on the way there… yes we have a CD player, lucky we don’t have an old tape going… and I would have had one of those if I hadn’t traded in my old Saturn last year… but I digress…). So, anyway, I was wondering. Is there no hope at all that you could grow out that mullet of yours again???

I know. It’s Wednesday. And the concert is Monday. These hopes and dreams of mine are damn near impossible. I know it can’t happen. But if it can’t, at least know this. I respect and adore your mullet days. Deeply. I promise you, there is not ONE ounce of disrespect or condescension in this post. I mean it. I loved your mullet. And I had a frayed poster magazine pull-out once upon a time to prove it. I swooned over you and your locks and, well, it kind of got me through puberty.

So, I guess if I can’t see your mullet next Monday, I can at least thank you for it. Right? So thank you. It. Was. Fabulous.

True Morningside Mom Duran Duran Facts:

• With teased hair, leg warmers and a red double studded belt on, I used to make up dances in my front yard to the song “Wild Boys” which played on my shiny new boom box. And I secretly longed for some Wild Boys in my life apart from what my Catholic middle school had to offer.
• I may have chosen certain guys to flirt with in High School simply because they kind of looked like Simon Le Bon. (Yes, they had mullets.)
• “Come Undone” was a college party panty-melter tune for me. No questions asked.
• My OB let me pick the radio station I wanted on during my second C-section. I picked the local 80′s station. And what song happened to be playing when my now five year old arrived into the world? “Hungry Like the Wolf.”  The child never stops eating, and it remains his anthem.

Thank you for over 20 years of fantastic music. I can’t wait to see you on Monday, and whatever is left of the mullet from so many years past.

Swoon and smooches,

Caroline

P.S. I’ll be the blond screaming your name in a spastic “Beatle-fan” froth next to a very tall, very mortified man who won’t be screaming at all.

P.P.S. For anyone who loved Simon and his mullet as hard as I did, Duran Duran tour dates are here.

P.P.P.S. Social media savvy super-fans, follow Duran Duran tweets at #Duransocial.

Five. So much older than four.

…And I WON’T let that blow my mind.

Because I remember saying once a long while back that when my youngest turned five, I would have deserpate, heartbroken empty nest issues and THAT would be when my babies were officially not babies and a enormous part of my parenting world would shift permanently off its axis and change course forever.

But it’s happened. And here I sit, unscathed and at peace about it, really. I’m just not going there. Nope. Why be glum, after all? There’s too much to look forward to. Plenty of chaotic, uncharted parenting moments ahead. So much to finally be able to do together. All kinds of growing and learning and being a little boy still left in him.

We have sundaes coming, after all.

So, here he is. Very still. Very wonderful. And five.

And when I pulled it out of my son’s bag, this exact thought shot through my head like some breaking news report scrolling across my heart:

“Time needs to stop RIGHT NOW. RIGHT. NOW! How. HOW CAN I MAKE IT STOP. HELP!!! This is insanity. He was in a little infant bucket seat two days ago. He learned to walk yesterday. HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING????”

My heart raced. I literally panicked.

Before children, time made plenty of sense. It moved along, one second at a time. Click. Another moment went by. Click. And another. All moments streamed along in the same increments of seconds and minutes. It was rather orderly and predictable and comforting.

But then we fools have children. And time launches into some other worldly kind of flipped out time warp zone.

It’s astounding;
Time is fleeting;
Madness takes its toll...
I’ve got to keep control.

At first time stands still. Perfectly still. At 3am with a squalling baby in your arms and no way to calm him. Hours seem to pass, there is no way he’ll ever get sleep. There’s no way you’ll ever get sleep.  You are all alone, there is no rhyme or reason to anything and when you think it must be morning any minute now, you look over at the clock. And it’s only 3:01 am.

Time screeches to a painfully torturous crawl in those wee hours. Or on those early evenings when your child skipped a nap and can not STOP tantruming. The days run together, nothing changes, no time passes, stuck.

And then when you assume your life has been frozen into one tantruming, blown out diaper, up all night teething vortex in time… it passes. And passes fast. Like a bolt. ZIP. That tantruming child with a blown out diaper is suddenly reading you a book, putting on his own pants and brushing his own teeth.

But this is nothing. I’ve been warned it only gets worse. Time tears your children from you faster and faster. They wobble their bikes up and down your sidewalk and then they are gone, speeding over to a friends house to play video games and then pulling out of the driveway in a beater Honda that they bought with their own money.

I know this preschool graduation form is only the smallest example of parental tick tock trickery. Only the most mind-blowing stretches of lost moments have yet to come.

Nothing goes by in any predictable, manageable order.

It’s either frozen or a blur, once stuck in hell and then whizzing by. At first on their way out the door for preschool graduation but arriving a half hour later dressed, recently shaved and ready for High School graduation.

And *poof* gone.

With a bit of a mind flip
You’re into the time slip.
And nothing can ever be the same.
You’re spaced out on sensation.
Like you’re under sedation.
Let’s do the time-warp again.

I know what this form means. It means time will not stop for me. It will only crank up its speed another notch and whip my little boy further down the path of his childhood.

Oh and while time is at it, it also happens to be speeding up my life without any warning. How am I two years away from 40??? I was in my very late twenties when I got pregnant??

Time, that evil bastard. He has totally played me. He said I had forever with my kids but I never knew “forever” would be on his terms. Slow this mother ship down. RIGHT NOW.

*staring at the form on the table*

Ok. So it’s just a form. Yes, I’d like to order a graduation tassel. Won’t that be cute? And it’s a good thing he’s out of diapers. And 40 isn’t so bad really anyway. If you can’t beat him, join him… right?

Well I was walking down the street
just a-having a think
When a snake of a guy gave me an
evil wink.
He shook-a me up, he took me by surprise.
He had a pickup truck, and the
devil’s eyes.
He stared at me and I felt a change.
Time meant nothing, never would again.

Let’s do the Time Warp again.

I’m talking about music. All I knew about it up until that moment was Disco Mickey Mouse. And the Annie movie soundtrack. And some really good Frank Sinatra and jazz albums of my parents. All good. None of it, however, quite worthy of blowing my hair back. None of it quite made me want to jump around and scream and yell and sing until I was hoarse and ignited to the core the way this did. You know that kind of music when it hits you. And I’m afraid it puts daddy’s Frank Sinatra to shame.

So back to the story. We were hanging out in front of my friend’s house. It was a weekend I think because we had nowhere to be and lots of time to kill. There was a large community of Americans in Mogadishu in the very early 80s, and my family was part of it while my father was posted there. And so while we were in one of the most desolate and desperate parts of Africa, we were just kids making do and enjoying our weekend, no different from anywhere in the USA. Because there we were. In our dark blue Jordache jeans with skinny red belts, ringer t-shirts, wearing Lip Smacker lip gloss stolen off some sister’s dresser.

It was hot out and dust whipped our stringy hair around. We sad on old concrete blocks under a thorny Acacia tree. The Somali sun never retreated so we had. Goats ambled by, kicking up more red dust. There was nothing to do.

And then a car drove up. My friend’s older sister ran out of the house. She was only an 8th grader but she knew the really big kids who drove cars. We watched her bend in to say hi. A moment passed and doors opened up, they all stepped out. And then it happened. Music thundered from an old tape deck somewhere within.

We stared.

Do you know what song it was? The song that ripped into my heart and made me want to rock my head and smile and move and laugh? Cliche or not, it was Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll.”

I was mind blown.

We froze where we were and listened. As soon as it was done, the song was rewound and played again. And again. Eventually we shuffled quietly over to the back of the car and sat up against its bumper, swaying, nodding our heads, mumbling the words when we knew them. The big kids never noticed or never cared. But we hung there. The whole afternoon. Listening to “I Love Rock n Roll” and “Crimson and Clover”. Over and over.

Joan Jett became a constant by the community pool and at evening social get togethers and at sleep overs and before community movie screenings. Joan Jett’s guitar riffs transplanted a small piece of the U.S. right into an extraordinarily foreign world. She brought some normal, on a loop, over and over.

So of course Joan Jett became my first rock and roll idol. Black leathers, black eyeliner, black shag haircut, bad ass guitar, and a chick-swagger like nothing I had ever seen before. She established in my soul what rock and roll should be, there amongst the Acacia trees and passing goats.

When I arrived home a year later, I snapped on MTV and discovered Cyndi Lauper, Annie Lenox, Toni Basil, Chrissy Hines, Ann and Nancy Wilson… and I got it. I knew it. I wasn’t afraid of it. I was moved and rocked and rolled by all of it. Without any reservation. How could I be, after Joan Jett popped my rock n roll cherry only a year before?

I watched “The Runaways” the other night. It was pretty good and about what I expected. The live show of “Cherrybomb” was sick. Awesome job. And my Joan Jett girl crush certainly never wavered. The 9 year old in Lip Smacker lip gloss lost inside came rushing back and rocked and got light-headed and wanted to scream, kind of.

“Saw him dancing there by the record machine…. knew he must have been about 17.”

OMG. Are you kidding me?

Swooning, feeling, nodding, singing, rocking, loving.

This is what happens when I finally tackle cleaning my own closet while the boys are at school. And while standing under the closet’s fluorescent light, in a nest of dust bunnies, between piles of old clothing ready to be heaved, I find stuff and get distracted.

Like an enormous bag of tattered nursing bras that need to be (not given away but) thrown out. Oh but sigh. Remember when I wore these everyday? Remember when my babies were so little and sweet and snugglie? AND MY BODY NOURISHED THEM? And then I stare at that nasty bag of bras and get all philosophical about the many meanings and miracles of life.

*heaving wistful sigh*

Or how about the pin-striped, sear sucker suit my oldest boy wore to my best friend’s wedding when he was just one year old. He couldn’t even walk yet, and there are still grass stains on the knees.

Or my graduation hood or an old dress of my mother’s or pictures and letters and wrapped presents (I wonder what they are?) and toys I heaved in there because my boys were fighting over them and the shirt my husband wore on our first date.

And then, out of nowhere, drops a sweet, fluffy winter cap my first born wore when we lived where there was real winter. A dear little powder blue cap, with pom poms, and flaps for his ears and a snap for under his chin.

This is what happens when you find that stuff.

You grab your child when he gets home from school, squeeze that infant’s hat on his head and force the snap together under his grown chin and make him stand there for a picture. And then you clutch them to you and blubber about how grown they are while they squirm and demand to see the picture and have a good giggle before yanking it off and bounding out of the house to go play zombies with the kid across the street.

This is what happens when I clean.

And it’s not pretty.

(…What is WITH me and all this nostalgic closet cleaning??? But my logic was that if I could do 3 closets and 13 bags for my mom, I could do it for myself too. And what satisfying results! Still. *eyeroll* Get a GRIP woman.)

Sure sure, I’m like every mom struggling to hold on to my boys and freeze time in it’s place. I say it all the time: “Where are my babies?” In fact, I say it so much that when my four year-old climbs into my lap in search of a snuggle, he actually asks me, “Where is your baby, Mommy? I’m all growed up!” Of course I don’t want them grown. Of course. Right?

Well. When no one is around. Sometimes. I curse and wonder when they will GET it already. No, you can put your shirt on by yourself. What do you mean you need me to feed you?  Stop eating board game pieces. Hold on a minute, did you actually wipe???

I think – when no one is looking and expecting my wistful, misty, mommy melancholy – I have actually spent far too much of my time secretly shoving my children to the edge of the nest. With loving nudges and well-intentioned heaves, I’ve tried toppling them over the side. Fly, dammit. You can do it. You can go pee in the potty and eat big boy chicken and take a shower by yourself and tie your own shoes. You can ride your bike. You can! Come ON, already, YOU CAN.

I’ve spent hours in front of our house with one hand on my son’s bike seat and one on the handle bars, hunched over, pushing, making momentum, panting and heaving and trying to get that thing to balance.

“PeddlepeddlepeddlepeddlegogogoyouhavetopeddletomakeitgoFasterFASTERFASTER!!!!”

*Crash*

*Tears*

“I’m never riding my bike AGAIN. EVER!”

*Stomping into the house*

I thought he would never learn. I thought he had to be the last kid his age unable to ride a bike. I thought I was being too hard on him. I thought I wasn’t a good teacher. I thought it was too hot outside.

So I gave up for the summer.

But finally summer has passed us by in Florida. The windows are open, the doors are open and the kids spend hours screaming their way through the front and back yard and chasing our indoor cat back in who has spring fever too and is desperate to eat just enough grass to throw it all back up on my floor later.

So, with a cooler spring in my step, I gave it a try again. He was ready to go. And. My pushing and shoving and fly, dammit, FLY… well, this time? It worked. He suddenly did it. He just kept going. And going.

And he didn’t need me at all.

Last weekend, I piled the boys, his bike and the tricycle into the car. We went to a nearby dead end with lots of open space to really conquer this whole bike-riding thing once and for all. I packed snacks and drinks. The day was beautiful.

Oh but I put this on myself. I know I did. Because suddenly there I was, alone in the middle of a road with my son soaring far far far ahead of me. Torpedoing over skull crushing concrete and I was no where near him at all to catch him. He was flying. He was gone. And he was thrilled about it.

There are many many milestones in a child’s life. And, thanks to my husband and luck, I have been able to be home to see most of them.

But there was something about this one. This milestone was a fantastic one to reach. But fantastic in that breath-taking “roller coaster” sense, that oh my God, he is doing it, he is on his own, he is in danger and going so fast and doing everything I pushed and shoved and made him do. He’s doing it. What have I done? WHY did I insist on doing this? WHY? Oh my God though look at him GO! And love and pride and his childhood is all over and what a beautiful moment… all rolled into one gorgeous fall day.

So I made a video of it.

I know. WHO wants to see someones kid figure out how to ride their bike? *Groan* It’s soooo “Mommy Blogger” of me and self indulgent and enough already.

But. Really? I love this video. I do. Maybe its the fantastic music I put in by the brilliant composer John Williams (of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” fame to name a few). I won’t tell you which theme song I picked but… it’s perfect. And it makes me weep, I tell you. Especially the end, please wait for the end. I’ve seen it a thousand times now, but… still. Tears.

So if you love me, you’ll indulge me. And watch my boy soar.

But today is my first day, at home, without my children. No kids, people. No kids until 2:30 in the afternoon!

What to do with myself.

*Silence*

It’s so quiet. It felt great at first. And then, pretty damn lonely too. No noise? …Does not compute.

I can hear the cat snoring on my bed in the other room.

It’s so very quiet.

But there is a strange pang within that I am trying to come to grips with.

No, it’s not a weepy, “oh I miss my boys” pang. It should be, right? I know. So throw in a side of guilt. I SHOULD miss them. And of course I do. But I’m ok with this moment of their new found independence. How am I so calm? Well, my wonderful kids did a fine job over these last few days of summer of making SURE I wouldn’t miss them too much. They did what they could to get under my skin just enough so that I would simply smile and wave, rather than weep and sob, as my husband’s car pulled out of the drive way. They’re thoughtful kids like that. And I love them so.

(And they were so damn ready for school. With beaming grins they practically whooped and hollered as they climbed into the car. How can I not feel happy and at peace about that?)

No there is another strange non-weepy pang within that I am trying to tease apart and figure out.

I think it does partly have to do with guilt. But really it’s this feeling that I need to be doing something productive with myself.

I have all of this time here. And it’s quiet enough to actually think. And nothing is getting any messier. I have the day at my finger tips. Most sane women would throw the laundry in the air, grab that box of bon-bons and dive into a whole round of soaps, dammit. After seven years of wiping asses and making sandwiches and ducking plastic toys – a little relax time is well deserved, right?

*wringing my hands*

I can’t quite get there.

You see for so long I have dropped any and all expectations of myself and my productivity to an all time low. If I can get myself showered and clothed well then YAY for me. Quiet time in the bathroom? It’s a lot to ask but weeee, its a nice bonus when it happens!

But now I can spend as much quiet time in or out of the bathroom as I’d like. At least until 2:30pm. Every other day.

But you see, I feel obligated to get my ass in gear. To DO something CONSTRUCTIVE already. Maybe something that earns money? Posts? Follow ups? Maybe start being more aggressive about ways I can pimp myself for some fabulous, oh so sought after writing cash?

*drumming fingers*

I’m still figuring that all out.

Or maybe actually get this place cleaned up for once? Laundry in its place. Dishes done BEFORE dinner. Oh, plan and MAKE dinner AHEAD of time! Clean out my closet. Change that damned kitty litter.

Or maybe I can finally be that mom who makes muffins and cookies and has them ready when they get home! And maybe I can be that mom who is calm and loving because I’ve HAD my “ME” time for the day. I can feel refreshed and ready to *bing* (cue cheery, June Cleaver smile) be that wonderful mom I swore I could be before I got knocked up.

What to do.

I can’t just do nothing anymore. I can’t just wallow in time to myself. My husband works his butt off all day, everyday (weekends too, I swear) all for us. SITTING AROUND just doesn’t seem… right.

But it’s weird too, you know? Just weird. Weird for me to prioritize my schedule the way I want to without any distractions from 8:00am – 2:30pm three times a week.

(That may not seem like that much time but, my friends, it’s a lifetime to me… a lifetime I tell you!)

So what have I done today so far? I have been productive but its been all about catch up and follow up and just doing things I should have had done days or weeks ago.

I didn’t even do the bills.

I didn’t make those muffins either.

And it’s 1:30pm.

Maybe I can squeeze those muffins in right now.

This new time to myself world is a strange, odd, unfamiliar transition for me. But I had better get used to it. Whether I make myself super useful or put myself first in whatever way – my kids are going to be spending more and more time away from me.

(Oh that weepy stuff WILL catch up with me, don’t you worry about that.)

Next year they will be in school all day, every day. Then it’s middle school and sleep overs. And then high school and driving. And then college.

My eldest is ONLY ten years away from COLLEGE.

Time to get my ass in gear and figure out what the hell to do with my time. Time to finally establish myself as a useful human being, capable and ready to make my mark on this universe in so many other ways than parenting.

Because I am more than a mommy. I am.

*soft kitty snoring*

*silence*

It’s time to go make some muffins.

I bet its one of the only one of its kind left.

And I would bet the school where I spent so much time is no longer standing either.

My father laughed when he saw it. It’s a crazy thing to look at now. The American School of Mogadishu. As if it was the most normal thing in the whole world. And to me, as an eight year old, it was. I told my father I actually missed Somalia and would love to go back someday. He looked at me like I was insane. And I looked at him like he was insane – HE is the one that brought my family over there in the first place. But nevertheless, Somalia was my adopted home for two years of my childhood.

Like any school, we had a playground. There were swings and big iron monkey bars where I spent most recesses, preferably hanging upside down, gazing out at the orange sand covering the grounds and the dry brush and acacia trees beyond that.

My classroom was like any classroom but with a cement floor and glass louvered windows on one wall. I practiced cursive, learned fractions and read about the nomads in social studies.

Our library was a cool reprieve. We were read “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” during circle time. And I would sneak off to read on my own. It was there where I learned to love to read. I think I must have checked out every donated Nancy Drew book they had at least twice.

I brought my lunch to school along with my water – which had been boiled and filtered to make it safe enough to drink. And like any other American kid, I brought peanut butter and jelly to school too. Granted that was easy to ship over and store. Our house had an entire air conditioned store room filled with canned, jarred and powdered foods. And all the Christmas candy was hidden far up on a distant shelf. My brother and I considered sneaking it down on many occasions. So we didn’t care how stale it was once we found it buried at the bottom of our stockings months later.

I thought it was cool that I didn’t have to walk to school. But I didn’t think it was cool that I went to school Tuesday through Saturday. Who goes to school Saturday? The traditional American schedule was changed to match the Islamic calendar. And we also went to school from 7am – 1pm. Because it was too damn hot to be out and about after 1pm.

I didn’t use the bathroom that often. I had a bad experience with a wasp hive nested under the toilet seat. I got away unscathed but my best friend ran out of there screaming once when a rat swam up the toilet to say hello. So I preferred to just hold it.

Once the sun had a set a bit, my brother and I would climb up the wall around our house and sit. We would watch herds of goats and sometimes camels go by. We waved at the kids. My brother knew some Arabic. I did not. Sometimes we would jump off the wall and run down the dusty road to find a local tea house. We’d duck inside and be given sweet, creamy tea made by a Somali child’s mother. It was delicious. Or other times we would jump off the wall and head towards my friend’s house who had lots of Barbie stuff. She also had a Dik-dik in her yard – which was very cool.

We heard the call to prayer five times a day. It was extraordinarily comforting. In the distance. Like a song. The world would stop. And we would watch. And wait.

I had a wallet with Mecca on it, I thought it was so cool, I felt so grown-up using it. I found that in the attic too this summer.

I also discovered rock music in Somalia. An unlikely place it would seem. But thanks to a crew of totally rad 8th graders and a tape deck left next to a pool at the local American compound, Joan Jett declared that she, indeed, loved Rock and Roll. And she sung also about Crimson and Clover. Over and over. So I decided I loved Rock and Roll too. And Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Poolside. In Mogadishu. Nothing better.

A few times my mother would take me to the market for fresh food. We would have to look carefully. We never went to the meat section. I saw the carpet of flies before it lifted to reveal what meat they had. Apart from fish, we stayed vegetarian most of the time. But I still managed to catch a decent case of dysentery. I think most kids did.

I didn’t have a concept of how safe we were – or not. Somalia was at war with Ethiopia at the time. I remember hiding under the stairs when mortars would fly into town. It never felt close. I was never too worried. But the Somali people I knew protected and cared for me. So tall, beautiful, flashing smiles, kind and patient.

Once in a village far from Mogadishu, I was surrounded by so many children touching my hair. I didn’t understand. The translator said they had never seen blond hair before. Oh. Cool. No big deal.

As my father says, “Those were the good days of Mogadishu”. Good days. Even at eight I understood the depth of poverty there. Of all the places we lived, I never saw anything like what I saw in Somalia. Distended bellies, hunger, disease, flies, drought, muddy wells, nothing.

A woman tried to pass her baby through our car window once. She thought he would have a better life with us. With a house and electricity and an air conditioned store room filled with food, and clean, filtered water – he would have. My mother never forgot that little boy and used to wonder if she should have taken him. She also wondered if he was still alive.

So my children are heading back to school now. I am packing up their Target bought book bags and sending them to school with sandwiches, cheese-its and juice boxes. Their daily routine is as normal for them as mine was in third grade. Relatively speaking, and in the mind of a child, neither seems more extraordinary than the other.

I wonder, with my 37th birthday looming, if it is a little late to learn this lesson. I am thinking it is.

As a child there are constants in your life. People. Places. Things even. There are traditions and cycles and schedules we depend on. This is where we always go for groceries. This is the bowl I always eat from. This is how my grandfather’s garden smells. This is where we go on summer vacation. This is what my mother always says. This is how it is.

I think as children, we fixate on these constants. In the first years after we arrive into our world, we experience extraordinary change. There is so much to learn and realize and grow up into. As our world moves and shudders under our feet, we steady ourselves with what is always there. What we know. If I walk into my home, my room will be up the stairs and straight ahead. The Cheerios are always kept in the cupboard over the stove. The house key is kept on a string inside the hall closet door. Always. And, as children, if we find our constants change even slightly, we panic.

My boys depend on routine. It is their religion. They move in their cycles, they are comforted by them. I joke about their OCD tendencies but completely understand them. What do you mean a fat man named Santa comes into my home once a year to deliver stuff? Are you sure thunder is perfectly ok even though it sounds like the world is exploding above my head? Wait, we’re floating on a planet in the middle of a wide unknown called space? *breathe* Mommy will have my favorite yogurt ready for lunch, we always drive this way to school and I get to stay up until 8:30pm on weekends. All is well.

But then there are life changing moments. You move. Your school changes. Your friends are far away. What was constant is no longer. A new normal is established.  I understood these changes well as a child. And, because children do learn new things quickly while clutching onto remaining constants, I assimilated when needed.

Because there is always some familiarity somewhere. My grandfather’s garden still smelled the same, no matter how many years had passed before I stood in it again. My mother always said those same kinds of far too annoying but strangely comforting things. And decades later, that very same grocery store I shopped at as a child still exists – with the same graying employees smiling down at me in line.

Death does a fairly good job at ripping most constants (the constants that were always always there no matter how far or how often I moved) apart.

Voices that soothed and moved you through a new world are gone. The world’s they created, the homes they kept, the things they bought to fill them, the foods they made, the gardens they grew, the traditions they kept, the sayings they always said over and over again… that is immediately gone.

You can’t return.

You can’t hear the door creak the way it used to and slam behind you. You won’t find the Cheerios kept where they always were. You won’t hear the sounds of your mother – her certain clicking, scuffing pace down the hall.  And, when you wake up far too late on a Saturday morning, you certainly won’t hear your grandmother singsong from the kitchen:  “Good morning Merry sunshine, how did you wake so soon? You chased the little stars away and shined away the moon!”

It’s gone.

And that is how the world is.

Things fall apart.

Things change.

Nothing is constant.

And as adults, we regroup and reshape and recreate our families. We make new constants. We surround ourselves with new everydayness. The Cheerios find a new home in your pantry. And maybe you redo what they did. You recreate it subtly with every hope that the constant in some quiet, private comforting way remains.

I miss those people. I miss those places. I miss those things.

With a nostalgic, regretful, desperate ache rooted and wound into my gut – I. Miss. It.

Still. I have new people and new places and new things.

Apparently this is how life goes.

Things fall apart. Things change.  But they renew again. And move forward.

Breathing and hoping.

But missing.

And eating Cheerios for breakfast every single morning.