Melancholy….For a Minute

From June 2012…

I’ve never been overly sentimental about most things – I haven’t saved every single pair of my kids’ shoes since birth (are you reading this, Amy?), I have kept only a handful of art projects (actually, if you saw them, you’d know why), a smattering of the interesting school papers, stories, tests and projects (is it bad that I only saved the ones that got A’s?) and a few of Ben’s favorite books or stuffed animals. I also am not one for anything but high school and college graduations – these pre-school, kindergarten, 3^rd grade, 5^th grade, 8^th grade ceremonies kill me! The most Ben gets as a ‘present’ for completing a grade (which is required, by the way) is maybe a package of double-stuffed Oreo’s. I sometimes feel bad that I’m not that gushy mom, but not bad enough to weep over it.

However, at the end of every school year, I get a little melancholy and a lot whole emotional.  At the end of this week, Ben will be an eighth grader. And that makes me weepy.

So, I went into his room this morning and gently woke him up. As he tried to rouse (this usually takes a very long time), I talked to him about how big he’s gotten, how much I love watching him grow, how I wonder whose gigantic feet (size 12) have attached themselves to those little legs I once knew and how I’ll be thinking of him throughout the day. Then he growled at me to leave him alone and what kind of weird stuff was I talking about, anyway? Hurt, I turned my tenderness and affection onto our sweet cat, Jack, who was also in Ben’s room. Just as I was loving on him, he mewed loudly and sprinted away. Jack’s rejection made me a little weepy, too.

Later, as I drove Ben to school, Kenny Loggins was singing ‘Danny’s Song’ on the radio and my son (who professes to hate all of our 70’s music but somehow knows the words and exact notes to every single song) was singing along – beautifully. I got all choked up….right up to the minute some idiot in the Dreaded Drop-Off Line made an illegal U-turn, cutting off about 10 cars and let her kids out of the car on the side of the road which made it necessary for them to cross in front of all the cars dropping off correctly. So, my sentimental journey turned into rage. (By the way, and I’m not all that proud of this, I pulled up beside her and pointed to the No UTURN sign and mouthed “not supposed to do that”. Then you know what she did?!?!?! She rolled down her window and gave me the finger!  You might think that would have made me really angry, but the truth is, that made me weepy, as well.)

I came home and went downstairs to work out. I cried through a re-run of Frasier while on the elliptical. It was the episode where Roz gave birth to her daughter Alice. I started remembering that special feeling and was weepy all the way upstairs and into Ben’s room, when I suddenly realized that all the crap that was stuffed to the gills in his locker all year was strewn literally all around his room. So much for my sniffles – wanted to ring his cute, ever-expanding neck as I started throwing things in the trash and giveaway bins.

Hours later, picking Ben up from school and watching his lanky frame bound toward my car, I felt the tears threatening once again – I may not hold onto every piece of everything that comes in contact with my son, but I treasure my feelings and moments with him just as much – and they don’t even clutter up my home!