When you get to a certain age, you realize it’s time to prioritize your to-do list. Not to discount her enthusiasm, but I think Ms. Routson exaggerated in my fifth-grade yearbook when she wrote, “Teacher, writer, astronaut, president—you can do it all!”
The truth is, the moon and the White House are not the only items to delete from my plans for this lifetime. I’m beginning to think the only degrees I’ll earn are the kind you order online, and I’m no longer waiting to metamorphose into a social butterfly, a ballerina, a talented cook, or a person who can utilize more than two organizational skills at the same time. These days, I see the wisdom in playing to my strengths and cutting my losses elsewhere.
For the most part, I’m at peace with the gradual recognition of the many things I may never do. My throat closes more stubbornly against the rush of things I will never do again.
Mainly, we’re talking about babies.
If you said that six kids in one blended family were enough, you’d probably be right. My oldest daughter started high school this year, while Jon’s oldest graduated and headed for the East Coast. Only one of the bunch is still too young for deodorant. I can see—even through today’s cyclonic activity level—an eerie quiet waiting to settle over our house in a few short years.
The thing is, I’ve spent so much time being buffeted by children’s urgency, so many years spinning in their familiar cacophony, that I don’t trust the impending quiet. It’s foreshadowed already during the times when our kids are with their other parents. The silence then is demanding, it wants something back. But what? Productivity? Leisure? Gratitude? Sex? I’m incredibly grateful that Jon and I have predictable times when we can enjoy each other in that intensely indulgent way that childless couples do, since we never experienced that phase of life together. Besides, being both divorced once already, we have a depressingly realistic sense of how dangerous it can be to let your marriage become like running a child care center with someone you used to date. Couple time is good! It’s just that a totally empty nest sounds so excessive.
Take New Year’s Eve, 2002. Jon and I had a party that started with all of our kids and a few friends at the Nicollet Island ice rink, and continued with festivities at our house. Our friend Julie brought her Best of Abba CD, while our friend Sean was the karaoke singer. In a fit of abandon, I put on my silver dress and black boots and became the dancing queen. Jon’s oldest daughter was a junior then, and she had invited about fifteen high school friends over. The other kids had guests, as well. At around ten o’clock, the adults made martinis. When midnight arrived, we paraded the block with pots and pans while the college kids on the corner backed us up with trombones from their balcony. It was a crazy good time.
Boy, did we pay for it the next day. Worse by far than the hangover was the weirdness of a confetti strewn floor and a kitchen counter stacked with dirty cups, coagulated hot chocolate clinging to their insides. Amid these sticky reminders of our kids, who were freshly departed to their other homes, Jon and I sat sullen, our ears ringing in the hush.
Not that I would seriously consider having a baby. Of course not! Yet to admit that, even to myself, feels like a hard pinch. Because living a life this full is a lot like giving birth over and over again. Each time you get better at it, and you realize how much you didn’t understand before. Even pain feels partly good because you’re so damned alive. By the time of Lillie’s birth—my last—I was only beginning to understand this. She came so fast we barely made it to the hospital. The intensity and speed of the effort left me shaking so hard I could barely hold her. She was wakeful and calm, and she smelled of bread. Sophie and Max were there to meet their sister, awed as much by the blood as by the strange new creature in my arms. My own sister was placating them with vending-machine treats and trying—while she waited for us to come home with Lillie—to fend off chaos.
And that’s the thing that’s so clear to me now: Everything alive is in some sort of chaos. I mean, what could be more chaotic than emerging life, or more deathly than complete stasis? I’m sure I can manage over the next several years to envision a rich middle path, but still, I’m a little sad to know that the fullness of the moment is but a sign of the gradual waning of these most chaotic years.
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