Melissa Anne Cohen

This is me.

Jessie had a busy weekend. Which, of course, happens. And I’m grateful it does. I’m thrilled that she’s happy and focused and busy and living her best life. But it meant that I went two and a half days with no contact whatsoever from her.

I was busy myself, I had things going on, so it wasn’t like I was sitting at home, lost and missing her. I was running around, cleaning, grocery shopping, reading, spending time with Marc, the other two kids, my mother, walking the dog. Lilli and Sarah came over, I had STUFF.

I wasn’t at all unhappy. And I wasn’t worried about her, I knew she was away at a mock trial competition, and busy, busy, busy. But I felt just… off. It was there, in the back of my brain, that I was missing something critical. I felt off balance. I finally made the connection, after she called me on Monday morning. It’s like a three legged stool and I was just missing one.

There was this sense of being a little bit lost. Not entirely, but things were not right when I wasn’t in contact with her. I’m not sure what pushed it over – I think it was the second day that was too much. It was probably also that I knew it was going to be an emotionally intense time, so I was worried about her. But when she called on Monday morning, suddenly everything kind of fell back into place and I felt – like me again.

It’s interesting to me, because there’s this process you go through as your kids grow up. For so long, you are the center of their world, and they’re the center of yours. Then as they grow up – you just aren’t anymore. They’re still occupying this huge space in your life, and you’re pushed slowly to the periphery of theirs. It’s exactly what’s supposed to happen, it feels healthy and normal and I’m never not grateful that she’s doing so well. It’s on me to figure out how to feel normal when I don’t talk to her.

I know I’ll face this – I am facing it – with all three of the kids. It’s not unique to Jessie. And both Sam and Julie have different challenges. With Sam, I’ve been SO intimately involved in his education and adjustment, figuring out how to step out of that gently is really, really tricky. And Julie – because she’s my last, she’s my constant companion and buddy – I have to be really careful not to put too much weight on her. It’s not their job to entertain me, or take care of me.

But the transition from being Mama to being the mom of adult children is HARD. Grateful to be doing it, always aware that not all moms get to be where I am, but I honestly found it much easier to be the mom of babies and toddlers. Tweens, teens and adults is so much harder.

So this is happening.

I’m working hard at being okay with getting older. I’m practicing telling myself I’m 50, in hopes that when I actually turn 50 next year, it will feel normal.

Because it seems bizzare to me that I’m 50. I mean, I’m not, I’m still technically 48, but 49 is tomorrow, and I might as well jump to 50. I don’t FEEL any differently. Not really. I can see where I’m different. More confident. Less eager for approval. More aware of my own ability to handle whatever it is.

I’m very conscious of what I’ve accomplished, what I still want to do. I’ve raised a daughter, I’m coming to the last gasp of raising my son and I’m in the second half of raising my baby. Have I done it perfectly? No. And thank goodness, I’m not done, not at all. But I can watch Jessica move into the world, loving her so much and being so incredibly impressed and delighted to have the opportunity to be her mother. I can see where Sam is going, and know how hard he’s worked, how much he’s overcome, how much of an impact I’ve had, as a mother, on his life. I can see what’s still ahead with Julie, as she comes into herself and be so grateful for her, for the gift of being her mother. Being their mother has been the best part of my life, and I’m always, always going to consider it to be the biggest and most important role I have.

I look at my marriage. This incredibly safe, secure place that we’ve built for each other, with a man who is always on my side, always thinking about what’s best for our family. I’ve never doubted his commitment to me, to the family we’ve created, and I’m achingly aware, tonight, on the cusp of my 49th birthday, how profoundly that impacts everything else about my life.

So, 49. Or 50. It’s… okay. I can do this. My forehead is pretty much always a little bit wrinkled now, and I’ve still got six or seven grey hairs. And there’s a weird vericose vein in my left leg that bugs me. My knees ache, I get heartburn a lot. But I’m overall in pretty good health. I still fit into the same size clothes I wore in high school. I’ve lost the ability to drive in the snow – or rather, I’ve got too much experience about how bad it can be driving in the snow and don’t do it anymore.

Not my favorite holiday – although not my least favorite holiday. It almost seems like one I don’t particularly celebrate. Other than the book lists – I’ve been happily jotting down all the book recommendations.

It’s a quiet morning today – all three kids are still asleep. I slept in until almost eight, which is crazy late for me. Marc got up early and made the coffee, as he does most mornings. I got up, and read for a while. Marc brought me two cups of coffee, and then he left to go to services. In theory, I was going to take Julianna and go, but she’s still sleeping, and honestly, I like being at home. Everything is quiet and calm, and I read for a few hours. Took Lizzie for a walk, emptied the dishwasher and made an english muffin for breakfast.

Jessie is home for a few more weeks, and I’m cherishing the time with all three of my kids at home. Julie is recovering from her concussion, slower than I’d like, but recovering. Things with Sam are moving faster than they have in a while, with him learning braille and tech and notetaking at a pace that he’s so incredibly ready for. Marc is happily ensconced at the JCC – and while the hours are hard and the work is harder, I think it’s better for him than Homeworks was.

For years, every February, April and July, I’d want another baby. I’d find myself dreaming about infants, thinking about how we’d fit another car seat in the car. I realized that on some level, my body, my emotions, remembered being in that state. Being nine months pregnant and so ready to hold my baby. It’s not conscious, it’s not deliberate, but my body remembers. And because it was so huge, because it was everything for me – I feel those feelings again.

And it turns out, when my child is in a car accident, I spend the next few weeks in a heightened level of stress and worry. I panic, a lot, all the time, and exist in this super stressed, impatient and slightly (sometimes more than slightly) angry. Even though she’s fine, and she’s going to be okay – I’m still a heartbeat away from tears most of the time. I could cry right now, and I was completely fine two seconds ago.

When that coincides with Sam coming down with a sinus infection and throwing up for five days straight, and Jessie’s computer breaking the same week as her final papers are due, and Hanukkah and Christmas all happening at the same time… I’m holding it together. I am. Not successfully, not all the time, but mostly. I’m holding it together.

My poor Julie was in the backseat of Marc’s car when it got clobbered by a sleeping driver. The car is totalled, my daughter has whiplash and a concussion.

There are so many complications with this – I can’t even process them all.

First of all – Julie is hurt. She’s got a concussion, and she’s dizzy and in pain everywhere. She’s bruised all down the right side of her body. I’m a heartbeat away from terrified – because a concussion and my baby is not a combination I ever wanted to be dealing with again. It’s just trauma – and I’m worried and feeling guilty because even her concussion is complicated by the fact that her brother was hurt so badly in another car accident about ten feet away from where she was hurt.

There are a thousand complications all over the place with this. School, after school, bat mitzvah – all of that. My life is a mess of doctors and paperwork and emails and appointments – like I can somehow make everything better by overdoing it on protecting her little brain. And I don’t know if her reactions aren’t being colored by the fact that her brother was so badly hurt.

I’m not there yet. In fact, I’m not yet 49. But Becky has turned 50, and so, emotionally, I’ve started prepping.

I find myself thinking mortality thoughts. Getting ready to get old. Thinking about long term, my kids living without me. Not in a scary or maudlin sort of way – just in a “huh – I should start pondering this” sort of way. My mind brushes up against it and then away. Because it’s hard to think about for too long or too in-depth. But I’m getting used to thinking about it. Or thinking about thinking about it.

I’m an all the way grown up now. At 50 – that’s full on adult. That’s middle aged. I find that I’m feeling okay about it. Not approaching a mid-life crisis or anything, at least not yet. But taking stock, thinking my thoughts, figuring out what I still want to do. What do I want to change? What made me this way – and what can I still change? How am I preparing my kids for the future?

I haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not even sure how I feel about it yet. Turning 40 scared the hell out of me (and given everything that’s happened in the last ten years – I think that’s totally appropriate). But the idea of turning 50 isn’t terrifying me. I don’t know that I LIKE it, but I don’t hate it. I mean, it’s better than the alternative.

I’m sure that at some point, it’ll stop. Right? They’ll all reach adulthood. Full on, total, adult hood. Although as I’m thinking about it, maybe it won’t. Maybe once you have kids, you spend the rest of your life watching them get older and older and growing more and more into themselves. First it’s holding their head up, then sitting, next thing you know they’re asking if they can hang up on you and just enjoy their ice cream while they walk. Alone. In the dark.

I mean, Jessie’s been at college for a year and a half now. And I’ve adapted rather well, I think. Yes, okay, I did sob thru most of her senior year. And okay, yeah, I did cry so hard on drop off day her first year, I had to have Marc pull over so I could throw up. But after that – I was mostly really okay. She’s where she wants to be, doing what she wants to do. Learning and growing and becoming who she is.

I make her call me when she’s walking alone in the dark. Not me, necessarily – but I told her that I want her to be on the phone with SOMEONE. So she calls me, faithfully, whenever she’s walking home alone in the dark. I mean, it was my only rule. She’s 19, almost 20. It’s not up to me to tell her what to do – she makes her own choices and decisions. I respect her so much, and I trust that she’s more than capable of living her own life. But… she’s not allowed to walk alone in the dark.

Tonight, she asked if she could hang up on me, because she wanted to eat her ice cream cone and enjoy her walk. Alone. In the dark.

And… wow. Yeah, I mean, of course. But, damn.

I feel like I’m constantly on the cusp of a million different milestones. All the time. Jessie’s walking by herself, Sam is going to the Ecotarium 2x weekly, and Julianna is friends with people I’ve never met, parents I’ve never met. They’re all growing so fast, and every time I think I’ve caught up, things keep changing.

I still made her call me when she got back to the dorm though. Because even if she’s all the way ready, I’m not.

I’ve successfully cleaned one room. One.

I still can’t find the remote.

I had such big plans for today. I was going to sweep, I was going to rearrange. I was going to indulge in a trash television marathon of Kardashians. Instead – I finished a book and cleaned one room. I did move Julie’s art stuff into the bedroom, and swept the dining room as well as the living room. I’ve done a good half of the dishes (but still have a sink full of Shabbat pans soaking).

When Jessie went to college last year, she was a mess. Just… a mess. She was super homesick and sad, and because of that, I didn’t miss her. I was so focused on making her okay, and she called me, seven, eight, nine times a day. I talked to her when she woke up, when she had coffee, when she walked to class, when she got out, when she went to another class. I talked her all.the.time. It was fantastic.

I didn’t miss her, because it didn’t feel like she left.

And by the time she settled in, by the time she was happy – I was good. We had weaned me off slowly. I was so smug. I handled my baby going off to college just FINE, thank you very much. I was so well adjusted, I told myself. I was happy she was happy. This was how it should be.

But, but… sophomore year is different. Jessie isn’t sad. She isn’t lonely. She’s BUSY. And happy and non-stop doing something all the time. Which is wonderful and I’m so happy. So, so happy. For her. But I miss her so much. I’m used to contact. Frequent texts, calls. Photos even. I crave that. I’m not used to no Jessie.

It’s my problem. Not hers. She’s exactly where I want her, exactly where she needs to be. And I’ll adapt, I’ll be okay. I know that. I just miss having my buddy here with me.

I just bought Sam a bag for school, and promptly burst into tears.

He’s been using Jessie’s hand-me-down backpack from high school and it’s been fine. I mean, it’s purple and not all that functional for him, but it fit his laptop.

Sam never asks for anything. Ever. Occasionally, he’ll ask for a video game, or a coke. Some skittles on occasion. But he never asks for clothes or shoes. But he asked for a laptop bag that wasn’t a backpack. I found one that’s for an adult man. Which makes sense. But wow. I wasn’t ready for that.

It comes on the same day that Sam took the paratransit round trip to work, the same day I dropped off my application and CORI form to the JCC, and I think it suddenly hit me – he’s going to go out into the world without me. He’s going to be independent and on his own. Marc and I have always talked about the risks with kids – whenever you let them do something independent for the first time, it’s scary and hard. But the risk, if you don’t do it, is that they don’t know how to do it when they’re on their own.

It hits harder when it’s Sam. Especially because he doesn’t push for independence. Sam’s used to not being able to do things. He can’t go to school, he can’t ride a bike, he can’t go to the beach. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t. Everything he does, I push first. And sometimes, it’s successful and sometimes it isn’t. Every set back feels awful and weighted and hard. Things were so hard for him, for so long, and the only thing I could do to make it easier was be with him.

But that’s not a good long-term strategy. I can’t be with him all the time. He was so happy today – because he arranged for his own transport, chatted away with his boss and co-workers, took the ride back. He’s thriving. He loves this. I’m pushing – in that I’m sugggesting. But he’s ready for this – he’s so calm and poised and confident. And he needs a bag where he can fit a water bottle, maybe lunch. His phone, his laptop, paperwork, etc.

It’s not that I missed out on time with Sam. I didn’t, I was there for all of it. But we missed the middle years. Collectively. He and I, and Marc – his middle childhood was so different because he wasn’t at school. He wasn’t experiencing things with his peers. He went from a little boy bag to a man bag, and tonight, it just hit me a little harder than I was expecting.