Do Overs

Do I have some news to share with you! I’ve already shared it with some of you via email because I just couldn’t contain my excitement. Now I share with everyone.

Darrell and Samantha are expecting! Their little bundle of joy is due sometime in mid-April of next year. Let’s congratulate them and wish them the best.

And so my dynasty grows, as Marjorie says.

Yes, my dynasty is growing. Besides my precious Gabriel there is adorable Katherine, affectionately called Kat-Kat. You know them already. Darrell and Samantha have Zeva, the amazing dog I wanted to teach how to fly by throwing her off the balcony. Not really! They also have Marley and Kitty, but they are cats and somewhat less social than Zeva. Not that I or Darrell and Sam love the cats any less than we do the dog. And now Baby makes 6, as the saying goes. Although I do think that the baby, when she/he gets here will probably take priority over the animals.

For someone with life experiences like mine, this dynasty building is really heady stuff, you know?

I’ve been on my own pretty much since I was fourteen. That is when my mother decided I was better off in Germany instead of within an actual family fold (see A tale of Three Blankies). After moving to Berlin I was left to fend for myself: cooking, cleaning, education, socializing… everything. Soon I was required to earn my own money if I wanted clothes and then came the ‘pay half the rent’ mandate. I moved out of my mother’s house one month after graduating high school, when I was 17.

After my brief marriage of less than 5 years, I was on my own again, this time with two kids to care for. For the subsequent 16 years it was me and my kids against the world, a strange version of The Three Musketeers, although I do aver that Athos, Porthos and Aramis had less squabbling and infighting than me and my kiddos did. Probably because the Musketeers had a leader and I didn’t feel like I qualified as such.

And now I head up a dynasty. Can you imagine? A whole dynasty, for someone with origins as humble as these?

And yet… I’m not ready for it. I’m not ready for Darrell and Sam’s bundle of joy anymore than I was ready for Kat-Kat to join us. And I was especially not ready for Gabriel to put in an appearance ten years ago. Because, every time one of my children produces a child, it is another reminder that my time has passed and their time has come.

My time at experiencing life is over. I’m supposed to be settled in and established. I’m supposed to welcome my children’s progeny and be available to visit and babysit. I am supposed to be financially well off enough to help them out at least, if not treat them to luxuries they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own. And I’ve never even had a shot at life.

No fair! I want a do-over!

Remember Do-Overs, from your days of hopscotch and marbles? Those times when you didn’t get the move quite right and felt you could do better? And you would wail, exclaim or shout: “Wait! I want a do-over!” Your playground friends would protest that the move you made was in fact legitimate, and if you got in a snit about it they would pack up their marbles, or take their rocks off the hopscotch grid and go draw another one on some other sidewalk and leave you behind?

I want a do-over for my life. There are songs I’ve not sung and dances I’ve not danced. There are things I’ve never experienced, like a lover’s romantic kiss or the Fall in Vermont. There are things I’ve never seen, like the Wailing Wall or the way the sun rises after a long, cold night on the Fjords of Norway. There are more personal things I’ve never known that I want to experience. There are things I know I could have done better.
And, I want my chance at being young, at being in love, at being free, at being open to anything. I want my unscarred heart back and I want my youth back. I don’t want to go from a life of hardship straight into being a grandmother, without the laughter, the love, the romance that should have been there but wasn’t. I feel like I’ve spent my entire life existing, but I’ve never really lived.

Is this selfish? Oh, boy, is it ever!

The thing is, time marches on relentlessly and events happen that you never foresee. I am the author of most of the circumstances in my life and if I didn’t do things in such a way to yield what I wanted and expected out of life, that is my own fault. I have to accept that, because the world is still marching on and events are still happening that I have no control over, like my children multiplying, or like my aging.

And yet…

Yet…

I did get a do-over. China is my do-over, where I get to be free, unattached and unencumbered. I am taken care of by the University and I have minimum responsibility. I have time and money to satisfy my urge to travel and see and do. I have great friends to do things with. I am doing what I want and love to do for a living.

My friends are my do-over. I am bowled over at the richness they bring to my life, weaving the dull fabric of my existence with color and vibrancy and fine but durable threads of love and care. These relationships that I’ve never experienced before in my life save for with Marjorie, and even then I did not know how to appreciate her or our friendship properly. Savoring my friendship with you IS my do-over.

My children are my do-over. Now that we are all older and wiser, we are connecting on a completely different level. Gone is the spiteful longing of one sibling over another and gone is the fear that I’ve done something terrible to them that they will have to live in therapy to get over. They are fine individuals, making their way in the world. Having them in my life, and in such a way as we are, is my do-over.

Writing this blog is my do-over. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do with my life is write. Before the Internet, and blogging became a reality, writing was a difficult enterprise. Earning a living as a writer was limited to those whose talent is far greater and whose skills are far better honed than mine. With two children to support, I could never aspire to be a writer. And now I am one. You, my dear Reader, are my do-over.

Every day is my do-over. By virtue of having denied society its constraints and having followed my heart and my passion, every day that I wake up in this apartment, in this city, in this country is my do-over.

I am, and always will be Gabriel, Kat-Kat and now the new baby’s Mema. And, however more babies my children decide to have, I will be Mema to them, too. And I will love them and be happy at my children’s happiness. So maybe I’ll never have a romantic kiss or a loving marriage… the time has passed for certain things. I finally accept that. But I have plenty of loving relationships with no romance involved. I’m making my own choices and experiencing things that, for most of my life I’ve longed for or only dreamed about.

I’ve gotten my do-over.

When you were a kid and wailed that you wanted a do-over… did you get one?

How blessed am I that I did.