Oh, lots of people warned me about lots of things when I became pregnant with my first child. But the one detail they left out was that, sometimes, the whole dang deal hurts.

Fair warning: I'm throwing a pity party. If you've had a great weekend full of parenting reward and triumph, I'll understand if you head for the door. That's a whole different kind of party, and invitations are few -- so grab one if it's handed to you, and by God, get good and drunk on all that good feeling over there.

Anyway: See, I want to do this right. I want to teach my kids that goodness is its own reward. That patience brings peace. So does forgiveness, of others and of oneself. I want them to know that we can't place expectations on others without first placing them on ourselves. That self respect (and all that it entails) keeps us alive. That love takes many more forms that we ever imagine, but never dies. And that, still, sometimes bad stuff happens that we can do little more about than accept, and for those times, the very best place to head is home. That "home" will always have an open door, no matter where that is. That...well, I could go on and on, and I only hope I have enough time to tell them what little I know.

That's the easy part.

But then these loin-fruits watch. Criticize. Blame. They shine a vivid, harsh light on all the ways in which I screw up. Sure, it's all part of the natural, healthful and necessary process of separating from one's parents. They yell their apartness, scream their independence -- sometimes deafeningly, sometimes so quietly I can't hear it. Sometimes I listen for a pin to drop and am startled by the boulder that lands too close for comfort. And in the aftermath are the questions that haunt me. Am I understanding enough? Am I too understanding? Am I letting go fast enough? Am I hanging on too tightly? I love them. I would do anything to keep them safe, happy, healthy. No question there. Do I show them in the right ways? Do they see it? Am I strict enough? Too lenient? Am I close enough? Am I too close? Am I too into this? Do I love them too much? Is that even possible?

I know it's all part of the plan, but does it have to hurt so much?

Nobody told me I'd feel so misunderstood. Nobody warned me I'd feel unappreciated. That the people I love most could, at times, be so cruel when I try so hard. That I would feel inexcusably, ridiculously, annoyingly sorry for myself.

Nobody, perhaps, except my own parents, in their own way -- but I was too young to listen.

Yet as I was writing this, the voice of someone who looks like me delivered a sudden, funny story about Something That Happened. And then, another, deeper voice drifted down the stairs: "'Night, Mom. Love you."

Nothing could ever sound sweeter. And gratitude works better than morphine.

Sometimes the crush of daily life and the dullness of routine obscures the fact that my children are growing. Fast. But once in a while, if I am quiet enough, I am privileged to watch a memory crystallizing before my very eyes:

I am sitting here on the couch. Next to me is a fat beagle, smelling of outside and rain, snuggled in as close to me as she can be, snoring. At my feet is my 7-year-old boy, clearly delighting in the opportunity to teach his older brother how to play chess. Across from him is said 14-year-old sibling, lanky frame stretched across the entire room (or so it seems), one foot in manhood and the other, in childhood -- and in this moment, reveling in the excuse to be silly and young. Rain hits the skylights, a comforting sound broken only by chuckles and "Hey, that one can't move that way..." and "What can this guy do?".

Just an ordinary day -- a dreary gray one, in fact. The world is a mess, the laundry needs folding, a gazillion writing deadlines loom, I can't shake this ear infection, and a million little things are wrong. But here, in this moment, everything feels utterly,

wonderfully

perfect.

I posted this a while back in my old blog; spending time with friends I love tonight prompts me to post it again....because if you're fortunate enough to have friends like mine, you can never, ever be too grateful.
*******
Ever notice something about memories? Some of the best are just snippets -- random, accidental, everyday moments that etch themselves into conscious permanence.

I got thinking about this today as one such moment came back to me, for whatever reason. It was nothing, really. Just the image of a very good friend sitting on a couch in a shaft of late afternoon sunlight -- that red-gold glow that makes life feel so mellow and grand. When that light shines into another person's eyes, it seems to illuminate the soul -- and in that fine moment, I was grateful for the friendship of the person I was peering into.

When I reach for them, I find so many such freeze frames from the past; strung together, they make a movie of a pretty fine life. Oh, there are other dramas, tragedies and comedies in the library of my memory...perhaps happiness depends on which of these mental movies we play for ourselves most often. The players are the proverbial cast of thousands, but not many are extras, so great are their influence.

If you have blessed me with the gift of your friendship, you are a star with a handprint on my sidewalk. I like that.

Just to avoid confusion: I received a request to change this blog's title, as it was identical to that of another blog on a different host. I don't mind, really -- I don't exactly have (or expect) a large readership.

So I've gone from "virtual" to "broken." Or maybe I'm "virtually broken"?

Oh, and my blog, too.

;-)

From Under the Tuscan Sun, airing tonight but originally based on what sounds like a novel I must read:

"Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come."

Hope and faith are wonderful things to run on.

A boy is on my mind tonight, the son of a man who died in a tragic accident this week. He is the friend of my daughter, someone she feels is special and sweet and silly. I've met him only once and I find myself tonight wishing I knew him better. This, so I could tell him that I remember what this is like, that I understand, that the breadth and depth of emotion racing around in his mind are normal and okay. That he will crumble and cry in one moment, and punch a hole in the wall the next. That he will replay the last week, the last year, the last everything over and over again, asking in frustration why his father wasn't just a minute later or a few seconds earlier that horrible morning, until he sleeps at night. And that his faith will come into play like a clutch three-pointer in the last second of a basketball game.

What I really would like to say is that the pain will go away, but I can't. Because I'm incapable of lying.

All I could tell him is that, as in a foot that's fallen asleep, the numbness will turn to a nagging buzz, then almost insurmountable discomfort...but then he'll be able to walk again without realizing he's gotten up. The good days will come to outnumber the bad, and he will heal. With time, he'll be able to remember without the crushing weight of grief. His family will see his father in him as he grows into a man, shaped by the countless lessons he didn't realize his father had taught him. In this he will find the sweetest of surprises: that anyone loved this much never dies.

In the coming months, he'll want to fall back mindlessly into whatever's behind him. And what is behind him is a safety net of friends, many more than he realizes, more willing than he knows, to catch him. I learned to lean on my friends back then, and their steadfastness was a gift I've never forgotten.

I just wish I could do something to help. Say the right thing. Offer a hug.

Maybe it's just the mother in me.

A birthday card I saw today posed this interesting question:

How old would you be

If you didn't know how old you are?

"Mom. Boys are drooling, babbling idiots," she said. "Were women always smarter, Mommy?"

She'll change her outlook very soon, of course. But as she teeters on the edge of preadolescence, it can be a decent ballast.

Who knew an old episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" could bring about such lively discussion?

16!
So my little girl turns 16 tomorrow. I have a few little things, but anybody out there have any great gift ideas? (Alas, she's not getting the Jeep she keeps asking for LOL.)

I love her, I love her, I love her.