This too shall pass. That has to be my mantra.
Adolescence is rearing it's obstinate head, in stereo, in my home. At times it seems a battle to the death is our only option. It is so difficult to remain the adult amid the hailstorm. Yet I know that there is hope, as I have survived this once before. Somehow, 13 stormed through and the delightful 17 year old who now resides where I live makes me forget that war zone. Could it be that this is another "childbirth" experience?
You remember, or do you, the day your darling was born? Both the birth days of my daughters are shrouded in fog. There are fragments of the day, waffles for breakfast, walking hospital hallways, a dark quiet room, a brightly lit OR, I think there was some pushing... Then all is clear again a tiny kitten cry and a baby whisked to intensive care, or second time around two babies to hold and nurse and snuggle until they insisted I move to another room. The moments most available for recall all have babies outside of me.
This must be a protection device to insure the survival of our species, the entire childbirth experience is almost forgotten as you hold your new born. This insures we will do it all again. I am beginning to believe that surviving the rearing of offspring through puberty is a similar experience. Of course you have had years to bond with the child, this too helps in their ultimate survival, but if one truly remembered it all I am not sure you would keep future children. Your own need for preservation would force you to sell to the first interested buyer, and may be even be willing to offer monies to cart them away. As a group we might have even come up with institutions to house the unruly lot and let them take on each other instead of keeping them individually.
But nature sees fit to protect us, and when my 17 year old apologized for past sins as a 13 year old I struggled to remember anything that merited an apology or forgiveness. My brain has tucked those memories into corners so obscure that they fail to register. Just like my first airplane ride. I remember being so excited at 16 I was flying to Washington DC with my youth group for a national convention, and chatting with my dad and mentioned it was my first flight. "No it isn't" he said.
Yes it is, I've never flown before," I responded.
"Don't you remember flying home from grandpa's funeral? You were 9 or so..." He went on to explain it was a very rough flight we apparently flew through a tornado on the way home.
Now I have total recall of the events leading up to said flight. My grandfather had a heart attack and died while visiting my family in Oklahoma, their home was in Minnesota. So my father, brother, grandmother, and I all traveled together by car back to Minnesota for the funeral. I even remember the funeral procession to the burial and playing with all the buttons in the back of the limousine. Thinking about it, I realized that we had driven my grandparent's car on that road trip and had to have gotten home somehow, but try as I might there are no available memories. No airport, no flight, no nothing. According to my father it was one of the worst flights he ever experienced, my brother was sick for most of the trip. The old brain pulls a fast one hiding all.
Good thing for the 13 year olds.
