Am I Hip Enough to Blog?

A Toddler On My Hip, as I Talk On The Phone about Someone’s Hip Replacement…

Who wants to read the daily to weekly musings of a suburban mom/urban social worker? Seriously—not a rhetorical question. Because I’m itching to get back to writing, and thinking a blog might provide just enough structure and stimulation to get me going. At any given time, my heart and mind are busy with the very young (our two daughters) or the very old (the elders served by the non-profit where I work mornings). It’s a pretty rich life in terms of vicarious human experience, but I’m all too often too rushed or preoccupied to appreciate all of it. I have almost perfect autonomy, and take it for granted. (I feel guilty about that—I may be Protestant in practice, but my Catholic guilt is alive and well!)

The constant exposure to the two age extremes is a somewhat unusual existence for someone in her early thirties, especially considering that I have almost no contact with my actual age peers (outside my husband). Our kids aren’t in school yet, and our opposite childcare/work schedules with no outside childcare don’t exactly make for a hopping social life. If it weren’t for listening to talk radio while I drive, and occasional internet news, I’d be even more illiterate in pop culture outside of child development or gerontology. I’m happy to have a strong nuclear family, but honestly, we could use a little more contact with the outer electrons.

But enough about my own navel-gazing. I’m hopeful this blog can ultimately be less navel-gazing, more shared illuminations of life’s challenges and graces as I get to witness them through the elders and our kids. Today, unable to reach something on the top shelf of the fridge, my daughter sighed, “It’s so hard being little.” Unable to reach something in the bottom drawer of the dresser, some elders at work have sighed, “Old age isn’t for sissies.” At a life stage where I can reach the top and the bottom shelves, my occasional sighs are accompanied by the refrain, “Can I finally stop multi-tasking and just live?” My serene, well-balanced retired neighbor commented in passing that she didn’t have large flower gardens until her kids were older. I hear the cautionary note in her gentle, non-threatening conversation. She’s already noticed I’m often too busy pruning the roses to smell them. I love it when she admires my kids, because it helps me appreciate their beauty and promise anew.

Sometimes, I leverage work experience as a mother. “Honey, if you don’t brush your teeth well enough, you’ll have dentures and those never fit comfortably!” Or I leverage mothering experience at work. “How are you sleeping? Are you eating fresh vegetables?” There is a certain symbiosis created by exposure to the two age extremes; I honestly don’t miss the presence of people my age. I actually abhor the mainstream culture’s way of cutting childhood short, but, paradoxically, extending adolescence. Throw out the Legos just so you can spend the next 20 years obsessing over self-image and popular culture? No thank you. And yes, I’m aware I could keep a therapist busy at least a few months delving into my own adolescence, but I don’t have time and our health insurance plan, like everyone else’s these days, is actually pretty chintzy.

The two year-old wants to play Elmo--gotta run.