Time Warp

Normally, as most of you regular readers know, I try to keep my blog centered around my life with my children. The lessons they teach me every day have become valuable tools to my survival as a mother of three. I enjoy working through the process as I write, and also sharing the knowledge with and garnering support from my readers.

This post also provides me an opportunity to work through an experience, but it's not about my kids. This post is about grappling with the past while having fun in the present. It's the philosophical discovery that the memories I have been harboring for the past couple of decades tend to favor the fun and positive and let go of the negative. As they should.

Yes, this post is about my 20th high school reunion.

Just like childbirth, my memories have shifted and faded over time. Over the years I have let go of the anguish and insecurities in high school and my mind has chosen to remember the fun and friends, the parties and dances, living large and proud. I really did have a great time in the 80's. I conveniently forgot that those years were also peppered with some insecurities anchored deep in teenage angst.

The second I walked into our reunion on this past Saturday night, I was walking right back into the quad, the heartbeat of our high school, and those old prickly self-doubts resurfaced. One by one they poked little holes in my inflated memories of those years.

I remembered that I always worried about what the guys thought of me. I knew in those years that I looked good and acted nice, but was it good enough and nice enough? I remembered the waiting around for a guy to ask me to a school dance during those first couple of years without a boyfriend, wondering if I would even have a date, as the days ticked away getting closer to those impending Friday nights. I remembered that I always had insecurities about my twin sister being the pretty one, and me being...the...what? What was I? The funny one, perhaps. The nice one. Not that she isn't funny and nice, but I had to focus on something to get through those years and that angst.

So now here I am, a happy and confident adult, walking into a room full of very nice people. We were all there just to say hi and see how everyone is doing. In the end we all wanted the same thing: a night of fun and reminiscing.

But by the end of the night I found myself haunted by those same old questions. Did I say "hi" to enough people? Should I have been friendlier to people, even those that I may never see again in my lifetime? Did I look good enough?

I suppose we are all still our teenage selves inside. It's a part of who we are.

In the end we can't pick and choose what we get to have back from the past. It all comes together as a package, so we have to open it up and dig through it all. Some of the pieces that were broken back then have mended over the years, but it doesn't mean there aren't any cracks. Slight glimpses of what used to be, still lurking among it all.

The inner teenagers did seem to come out in many of us that night. For some it meant that the sense of humor that was so famous back in the day came back out in full force. And for others it meant rallying some of us to the dance floor to have some fun, like the good old days at a prep rally. And others stayed by the sidelines a bit, just watching the scene, not sure of where they fit in.

For me it meant staying close to my posse of friends, and never far from my husband, a trooper of a man left for quite a while to entertain himself with the other reunion widows.

Overall I enjoyed the night. I spent time with my closest friends, whom I still love and treasure to this day. I tried my best to branch out and talk to others, but in the end I wasn't sure it was enough. I looked and felt great. But was it enough?

As much as I wish I had let go of that insecure little girl inside, tossed her out with the bad hair and shoulder pads, she was still in there.

And just like in the glory days, I managed to have a really fun time, living large and proud, yet still plagued with a few doubts.

Thus the process begins again, letting go of the negative, holding on to the fun.

Processing

First off, thanks to everyone that has given me their virtual hugs and support since we lost Enzo. It's nice to remember how many laps he lied on and cheeks he licked, whether you wanted him to or not.

We are still processing in our family. My husband and I have been much more affected by this loss, as I would have expected. And we have been wonderful support for each other, drying our tears as we talk about how strange and sad it is not to have him around anymore. It's truly amazing how much your mind and muscles have their own memories, and you have to stop yourself every time you go to do something for him, and he's not there.

As for the kids, I am seeing the reaction I thought I would see from my younger daughter. She's still at that age where she will talk about things and yet it is somehow still distant and not as much of a tear jerker for her. More on that in a minute.

I am not, however, seeing the response I thought I would see from our oldest. She seems to not be processing this loss at all, which worries me. Looking at it from my counseling and professional perspective, I feel like she is shutting out the sadness and not giving it a voice or any recognition. She questions why people say things like "I'll always love Enzo" when he's not around anymore. As if our love should die with him.

And she has hardly said a word about it at all since it happened. I'm getting concerned. I recognize that we are all different and process things differently. I just want to make sure there isn't a lot of sadness welling up inside, waiting to explode. Or worse yet, turn into anger. I tried to explain this to her this morning.

My younger daughter brought up Enzo yet again this morning as we were leaving the house. My three-almost-four-year-old was the one that mentioned him at least a dozen times during the day or two after his death. She started off by acknowledging that he was gone so we didn't need this or that anymore around the house. She just matter-of-factly stated it, in a sweet way that was her method of continually processing what was very real to all of us.

More specifically, on the morning after she found out, my younger daughter came downstairs to breakfast with a picture of him that she had drawn. Eerily, she drew it on black paper. This piece of mourning was a drawing of her and Enzo together. In the middle of Enzo's chest she had put a heart sticker. Then she told me that he had sad eyes, because she thought he was sad when he died. This all brought tears to my eyes, but I contained myself as I have been trying to do around the children. We then had a very nice talk about how we miss him and still love him.

I mean seriously. I don't know if I can take credit for her passion and empathy, but she reminds me so much of myself when I think about it. We both swing hot and cold at the drop of a hat (oh, how I loathe her tantrums), and her sensitivity and insight at her age continually amazes me.

So this morning my younger daughter says she had a dream about Enzo last night. She says "Isn't that silly? He's not even here anymore but I had a dream about him."

I say that it is great that he visited her in her dreams, and that it just means that she misses him.

My older daughter then says that she never thinks about him. And she doesn't say it meanly, just like it's the right answer; like now that he's gone, she's supposed to move on, so that's what she's doing.

I take this opportunity to try to talk about feelings and how it's good to talk about them. I explained that if we get too much of one kind of feeling we can get out of balance. I also say that sometimes when we have too much sadness in us and we don't let it out, it can turn into anger.

She questions this, as she likely should, so I try to explain it a little more, but I don't do a very good job. We are trying to get out the door and I'm on my own with the three little ones, so the whole subject gets sidelined.

Every day I have been trying to prompt her to talk about it, but I'm not getting anywhere. I ask her if it makes her sad, and she just doesn't really go there. I ask her if she misses him and she just gives a little "uh-huh" type answer. I don't push it too far; just once or twice a day I ask about him when the topic comes up.

Since it's in my nature to talk about everything well past the point of enough-is-enough, I have to be careful around this one. But I do think it deserves some attention, so I will continue to nurture it, hoping for a breakthrough.

In the meantime, I hope he comes back to visit us all in our dreams.

I really want to give him another hug and kiss.

Goodbye Old Friend

This week our family had to say goodbye to our dog Enzo. And it was harder than I had ever imagined it would be. Not that you can really prepare yourself for something like this.

Just looking at this picture while I type is giving me a big lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

We found out a few days ago that he had cancer in his spleen that had spread to his liver, and within 24 hours he had internal bleeding that was incurable. My husband and I were faced with a horrible decision, but a necessary one.

And an experience that I will never forget.

Over the many months that I have been writing this blog, I haven't mentioned him much. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a very present part of our family. In fact there were many times that he was driving me so nuts that I was composing blog entries about him in my head, and titling them "Did I mention we have a dog?". But I knew those blog posts would only have been me complaining about being a pet owner, and I didn't want to go down that road.

The fact is Enzo is the one that first made my husband and I a mom and dad. He was supposed to be my husband's dog as he and I weren't even living together or engaged at the time we got him. But falling in love with his little puppy face was unavoidable.

Over the past eleven years he grew from a hyper puppy to an over-active teenager, then entered adulthood with pride and watched over all the little ones that joined our family after him. Eventually we declared him a senior citizen, complete with gray hair and a bit of a grumpy attitude. In just over a decade he went from our little adorable baby to the patriarch of the family.

We always realized that Enzo was getting less and less attention over the years. We kept saying he was moving farther down the totem pole with each child we added to our growing brood. And we felt a little guilty about that. But I don't think he really noticed. He just had a lot more little hands to pet him and friends to come over and visit. That, and he had a new favorite place for the last seven years: under the high chair.

He was woven into the fabric of our family. Now I see that more than ever. Every time I walk into the house I expect him to be at the door excited to see us. And every time a bit of food drops I have to stop myself from calling him over to gobble it up. I take the kids outside and expect him to be there chasing bubbles or pooping in the neighbor's yard. When we play outside I have an internal alarm that goes off every 4 or 5 minutes to look for him and make sure he's still around our house and not visiting the many friends he has made in our neighborhood over the years.

He was a people lover through and through. He could win over even the most fearful children, giving them kisses on their food-smudged faces. It was because of Enzo that the little girl next door went from being frightened by dogs to being a dog-lover in a matter of a couple years. I fear her parents now have us to thank for her constantly asking to get a dog.

A friend of my husband's said "I don't even like dogs, but I really liked Enzo."

It was just in his nature to win you over, no matter how much you might have been afraid of or annoyed by him.

His so soft ears and big amber eyes.

The way he always thought everyone that came over to our house was here to see him.

His irritating bark at all living beings that walked by our front window.

The sound of him drinking about a billion bowls of water a day.

The way he walked in between your legs and parked himself there for safe keeping.

His love for catching flies or chasing flashing lights.

The way he came running to the kitchen whenever he heard the crinkle of a bag of deli meat.

All the love, energy and chaos that he added to our family.

We will miss it all dearly.

Goodbye old friend.

Playground Trash Talk

It happened again.

Last night my oldest is in the bathtub and she is babbling away with some imaginary friend or something of that nature, and she says "the F word."

She says it just like that. "The F word." As if it was a tag on to some sentence she just uttered.

My husband is walking past the tub right at that moment and I'm on the computer with my back to them. I instantly turn around with huge eyes and a bit of a smirk on my face.

We give each other a quick look that says "now what?".

Just as he's trying to make a quick getaway she asks "What's the F word mean?"

You'll notice she didn't say "what is" the F word, which would mean that she thinks this mystery is all wrapped up in those exact three words. Not in the one actual word that starts with the letter F.

My husband fields the question with another question.

"Where did you hear that?" he asks. Like a pro, that man of mine.

"Some kids at the playground were talking about it. I don't know what it is but I think it's something bad," she says.

And then she just keeps on playing in the tub and sort of changes the subject herself.

We know when to leave well enough alone and not provide any information, especially when none is being pursued.

If only those trash talkin' kids on the playground would do the same.

Until next time.

To Each Her Own

This year at Halloween my younger daughter reminded me, once again, that every child is highly demanding different.

Last week when it was time to try on her costume for a Halloween party, she put it on and tears welled up in her eyes. Who knew that Tinkerbell could be so offensive? She had asked to be Tinkerbell and I picked up what I thought was a very cute and girly Tinkerbell costume at the time. But apparently I was the only one of that opinion.

Well it wasn't really just me. It was my oldest daughter too. Which was part of the problem. I was thinking about things from her point of view and not my younger daughter's, which is the way I've been programmed for (almost) 7 years.

I picked out something that, without thinking about it, would have been perfect for my oldest daughter when she was the same age as her sister. But my younger daughter is a bird of a different tutu. She's not really into all the frill and fluff that a lot of little girls like when they are three or four.

And herein was the problem with the costume. "Too fluffy," she said.

So I altered it and took out some toule. And as I was hacking away at this sweet costume that I paid good money for, I was reminded that this was the third year in a row that I was committing such an act. My mind flashed back to a ladybug fairy outfit that was never even tried on when she was one and a half (and instead she opted for the bunny costume that her older sister wore when she was the same age) and a black cat costume that just wasn't comfortable last year (and rightly so since it was a bit too small despite the right age being listed on the label), so I altered it to be her own black clothes with all the trimmings. I really need to remember this next year.

After the alteration, Tinkerbell was cast aside and laid around on the floor for a few days, awaiting it's rightful wearer. But try as I might, I couldn't get my daughter to even try it on again until the day of Halloween. And then, as I had feared, it was still "too fluffy".

Being that we were due to her school's Halloween party and parade in a half hour, we just went through the ample supply of dress up clothes and picked something else. She chose a ballerina outfit, but true to herself, she picked the one with no fluff at all, just a pretty skirt attached to the leotard. She steered clear of the fluffy tutu that I had made for her sister's costume a few years back, even after giving it a quick try-on.

And off we went to the party and parade. Once again, she stayed true to her personality and, on the same stage where her big sister once sang out proud, she was shy and quiet, rarely looking up for the camera. But this was no surprise to me; she's always been my lovebug that likes to stay close by.

So we skipped out of everything a little early and came home to our safety zone. Upon arriving home, she immediately changed out of her costume and into her puddle-stomping clothes. With a huge smile plastered on her face and giggles that could be heard down the street, she played in the puddles, stomped in the mud and dug in the dirt until it was time to come in for lunch.

That night she was happy to put back on her ballerina outfit and keep things simple. No pomp and circumstance for this girl.

And after a bit of trick-or-treating, she was relieved to be back home where she could give away the candy (thankfully a little faster than she was eating it) and let the party come to her.

To each her own, my love.