twenty years from now maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers and I can tell you 'bout today*
>> Thursday, July 21, 2011
I'm headed to my family reunion this weekend. Meaning, my children and my parents and my siblings and my cousins and their children and their parents. I will see "little cousins" who are grown men and I will be a grown woman to those cousins who saw me as their "little cousin" and my dad and his siblings will look at the crew and think, when did this all happen? weren't we just here on these beaches as kids ourselves?
And I'll swim in the same lake I swam in at 5 and 10 and 16 years old, and I'll watch my boys play with their cousins and my cousins' kids, and when we hear Mom and Dad it will be me and my sisters and cousins turning our heads because our Mom and Dad are now Grandma and Grandpa and before we know it these little people of ours will be the ones that are grown up and looking around wondering how that just happened.
::
A friend posted this video on facebook and I bawled my eyes out. I love Ben Folds, and I hadn't heard this song before. It just hit on something in me that I've been thinking about a lot lately - this wish for my boys - for me and all of us really - to be able to hold on to the very best parts of being a kid. That uninhibited urge to run and jump and spin and laugh, the wonder and the straight-up joy and delight in just about everything. Being small enough to be picked up and carried when you just can't keep at it on your own, and the uncomplicatedness of love. Oh, wouldn't that be good?
My mind has been sitting there in that place for a week now, after camping with my family and my parents and my sister and her boys last weekend, sitting around the fire with my 13 year old nephew, listening and talking honestly with each other, remembering what that felt like, thirteen, and being able to zap myself right back to that wonderful-horrid spot of not being a little kid and not even being close to a grown up. Oh, my heart.
Anyway, this song is so good, and I'd pull out my favorite lines from the lyrics for you, but just listen and tell me your favorites, instead.
*title from lyrics of Still Fighting It by Ben Folds
8 comments:
How funny. Now you've hit on something for me. I just had the family reunion experience a couple of weeks ago. The coolest part was that it led quite serendipidously to a night on our deck with my oldest cousin to whom I was always "the baby." Ten years difference means very little now, but what a treasure to hear his memories that I missed: a grandpa I barely new, the cottage I was too little to really enjoy, lots of gaps filled. The best was probably just relating to a relative in a whole new way, I no longer the baby and him no longer the out-of-reach big kid.
Sweet, sweet video. We just returned from this. I watched my boys experience the very same thing!
oh, i don't think i can bring myself to watch it. when you are a kid you can't imagine what it feels like to be grown-up, but suddenly, you ARE a grown-up and you know exactly what it feels like to be a kid and the kids just don't understand. childhood is my weakness, my sensitivity, my sappiness runs wild when it comes to childhood. i can't watch that video. maybe tomorrow. i'll prepare myself. :)
"And you're so much like me. I'm sorry."
love.
There was pain, sunny days, and rain... heart that. My oldest is five and he is so intuitive right now. I can already see the little man he so wants to be. He says all the time "when I grow up I..." I keep thinking, oh my boy, slow slow down.
You've made me a bit teary...first with your first paragraph then with the song. That bit you wrote about now when 'mum and dad' are called out, it'll be you etc turning your heads cos your mum and dad are now called something different...it really struck a chord. I hadn't actually thought in depth about it. Then the song...lovely...and my kids are at my parents for the weekend and it made me wanna give them a big hug...the song made me laugh too...when my son was born, my husband looked forward to his boy bringing him a beer during the footy...well, he's 5 now, so that's happening. Now my husband looks forward to sharing a beer with him and having a blokey chat. I cringe when he wishes for that cos i don't want to wish this time away, this cuddly sweet time.
anyway, thankyou.
Love my family, love that song. This is kind of rambly, but oh well. I've been thinking lately that I want to freeze my son at 12 and not let him grow up any more, and my daughter -but not until she's 5, since 4 has been "interesting" ;). I've actually found myself getting emotional more often (like right now, for some reason), thinking about my oldest boy growing up. Starting so early, I worry we didn't appreciate what we had enough - just "survived", worked too hard (we had to?,) didn't do enough, etc. in his early years, and now I'm grabbing on to every second I can get. I'm trying to put down my work and just be there, even if it means some late nights and tight deadlines. I know there's not much time left with our remaining grandparents. Two friends in their early 30's with kids received scary cancer diagnoses in the last 18 months, and all sorts of other things have happened to make me really want to stop and LOVE and ENJOY and SOAK UP every minute I can get of family time - immediate and extended. I find myself smiling and even getting a little teary watching other families together at various events and on vacations. Thanks for writing about this! I say SLOW DOWN, and GRAB ON to every minute you can with your families!
i think i'm too pregnant to read this.
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