The Next Five Years
This week I will marry my husband, again. As we do every five years. As I hope to do for a long, long time.
We do this as a way to check in with each other about the big stuff. We, like most parents, are in a constant state of checking in about the small things:
- “Who needs a pick up?”
- “Where is that water coming from?”
- And the eternal afternoon albatross: “What’s for dinner?”
But Every five years we like to make it a point to check in about the big things:
- “Who are we?”
- “Who do we want to be?”
- “Where is that water coming from?”
Life is complicated – nothing is just one thing.
I like this practice and it has been so fun to plan babies and families together, but as I think about the next five years I realize that at the end of it, I will no longer have young children, just teens and above. That has been a pretty big defining factor for most of my life and in five years I will no longer be a mom of young kids.
The next time we negotiate I will be 53. A mature woman — it could happen! My husband will be signing on for a grey-haired grandmother (god willing) and the kind of deep love that comes with aging. So different from the bouncy energy of my 30s, when he first fell in love with me.
Life comes at you fast.
As I write this, Chickie, a matriarch of my family, is fighting for her life at a hospital in the States after a massive heart attack last night. I just lost an important matriarch (nine blogs ago) and it makes me wonder about the free-fall that is life. When we lose the people who have guided our lives, we find ourselves suddenly out in front. I may not be ready, but time is nudging me to the front of the pack. When we lose our heroes, we need to dig down and become our own heroes. My kids are becoming their own people, and I am their example.
God help us all.
It is fine. I have this. I entered parenthood faking my way through it and if I need to fake my way through being the wise old crone in the family, I will. I look at the next five years and the possibilities are at once endless. and seemingly for the first time, finite. I am not having any more babies, I am now a lot less likely to have that talk show I always wanted. We will think about things like health care more often. Retirement. The next five years is still a whirlwind of parenting and working and juggling and supporting each other, and that will have to be enough to make me the sage adviser I will need to be.
So, here we are on the precipice of another five years together and we have figured out some big things about ourselves and who we are. But there is still a long way to go.
Checking in about the big stuff reminds you to take a look at the bigger picture.
And in my big picture I am in love with the idea of growing old with my best friend/husband/editor. [editor’s note: me too]
But we still don’t know where that damn water is coming from.
