How do I feel about all the kids leaving the house? My last one off to college?
Well damn first I feel like 100% I did the most incredible job. Like those kids were my life. I am shoving them out with whimsy, hopefully, most importantly, and otherwise they have all the rest you know book learnin and knowhow and such.
When we lost that last game we LOST that last game and part of me was relieved I never have to sit through another game worrying about whether they will win but then sitting through those games and watching how a girl can fiercely rip a ball from another girl and that's in THE RULES, and the winning and the losing and the fighting and the comraderie and the laughs and the hair braiding and feeding and listening to and comforting and crying
Basketball is the same as making a life. Raising the kids. I think that's why seeing them lose that last game was like oh no
I was so liking them all
They were my life
Nathan and I went to Blowe's to get some chain and hook n eyes and somehow in the planetary space that is Blowe's, in the same aisle we pass a guy who drops his cane and Nathan stoops to pick it up and give it back and then we're standing looking at hardware and this lady says hi and it's this lady from Stonehurst, the mom that was ahead of me in the line of moms, she lives on our street, her husband had had a stroke years ago, and there he was, the guy with the cane
She's the reason my kids went to local schools and had good teachers and helped me make sure my kids grew up happily at our Verdugo High School. I told her all these things. She said we always call you the Beautiful Family. Oh that's the Beautiful Family.
The next day I was walking around doing my chores and thinking someone thinks we're the Beautiful Family.
There's so much struggle in your own mind, are you doing things right, are you terrible, are you happy enough, is this decision the right one, and these raising kids years, there's no possible way in the WORLD with the amount of things flying at you each day that you can navigate it without occasionally dropping things into the storm drain and watching it wash away. You can't possibly have the right compartments for everyTHING, that's why the garage is its own wasteland, why Bess has a therapist, and then you add in global disasters and dementia and you got a real stew cookin.
But how do I feel about the kids all leaving home?
I feel so happy that I got to be in every brownie batter we ever made.
I got to be at every game.
I got to be in love with all these girls and with their total commitment to protecting the ball.
I want to be more like myself. They're just starting out, they don't even know themselves, but I have lived a life and I know what matters. Watching, loving, showing up, not missing a minute. Being there for the team. For the beautiful family.
I did that right, for all of us, me included.
