Growing Pains

During my years ‘between husbands’, my daughter and I developed into a little self-contained unit, doing things together like partners instead of parent and child. I learned in my divorce class last night that this is called adultifying one’s children and is apparently a bad thing to do. Nevertheless, seeing no other options, I’d recruit my 4 year old to unload the dishwasher because I had a paper to write, my 6 year old to hold the ladder steady while I hung Christmas lights in the tree in the front yard; my 8 year old to lift up one end of the picnic table so I could mow under it; my 10 year old to shovel the driveway so I could get the car out. Somehow we fell into this silly routine where whichever one of us claimed to be the most exhausted or the most in need of being taken care of was entitled to claim “little one” status. The little one got to be enveloped in the arms of the “big one”, sort of like a huggee – hugger arrangement. Sometimes we’d jostle for the huggee position, each of us wanting to be the one being hugged rather than doing the hugging. I remember that on occasion I would feel so overwhelmed juggling full time work and doctoral studies that just one little setback could tip the scales – like noticing the water stain on the ceiling in the bedroom. At times like those I’d close my eyes and imagine that someday I’d get to be the “little one” again. Some day I’d have a life partner again who’d fight with Bell over the mistake on the phone bill, or price out the cost of new shingles for the roof. Some day I wouldn’t have to be in charge of everything. And even though my little girl was too young to be witnessing her mother’s occasional meltdowns triggered by fatigue and loneliness, she was not too young to be my source of strength. Just knowing that she was there for me somehow helped me to believe that I could handle all that I’d taken on. Now it’s happening all over again. I am single again. I am the “big one” again, but this time my daughter is almost 18 and is heading off soon for university. For almost a year now we’ve been partners again, but that is coming to an end. I asked her tonight if she thought I'd ever get to be the “little one” again and she said “Yes... when you’re old.”