To the Young Ones in My Life

This is a post that was just screaming to be written and didn’t want to wait until October (and I figure I deserve a little blogging break, since I’ve been doing nothing but packing books, “fragiles,” and pictures all day – all the things the movers say will save money if we pack ourselves). Not that I don't have a lot of other posts screaming to be written (like how I hate publishing companies, despite the fact they've put food on my table for the past 17 years, for not agreeing on a standard trim size for all books), but I'm managing to keep them quiet with chocolate and gin.

This post is dedicated to all of Bob’s and my very young friends we have to leave behind in Connecticut who break my heart with their sadness as our departure date looms. Never fear, though. They're going to all be thrilled we moved when they come visit and get to go to Hershey Park with us.

Don’t you love it when the kids you know and love grow up to be people you love even more? My nieces are now in their late teens. I can’t say I had much of a hand in raising them, since I’ve been far away in Connecticut all their lives, but despite their having to survive without the benefit of my expert parenting skills (which I’m sure my sister would have loved), they’ve turned into wonderful young adults. If you’d told me when they were infants in my arms or pudgy-legged little three-year-olds, or earnest 8-year-olds that I was going to love them even more now than I did then, I would have told you it wasn’t possible. My mother has always described this phenomenon to me, telling me her love for her children grows more every year, but of course, I never believed it, just assuming it was one of those nice things mothers say to their children to make them feel good.

Now, though, I’m aware that it is possible. As much as I loved my nieces when they were little, they are so much more fun now. I can have long, 2-way phone conversations with them, instead of conversations in which I’m doing all the talking and am informed by their parents when I’m greeted by silence that they’re nodding or shaking their heads. Their young minds are full of ideas and opinions. They have wonderful senses of humor. They are developing their own life philosophies. What fun it is to observe all this when I get to see them.

When I first moved to Connecticut, in my early twenties, I became friends with a colleague who had two daughters who were ten and thirteen at the time. The first night I met them, that adorable ten-year-old was begging her mother for another Care Bear to add to her huge collection. I had a long conversation that so impressed me with the thirteen-year-old about eating disorders and bulimia. A few years later, I went on to live with all of them for a little while and hope I helped them both through some of their teen angst. That ten-year-old is still adorable, but now she’s a thirty-year-old Ph.D. candidate living in Chicago, and she and her partner are two of the most fun people with whom to sit around for hours drinking coffee and discussing people and ideas (and I’m extraordinarily jealous, because I recently received the email with the photos from their summer vacation to Hawai’i). The once thirteen-year-old and I sit around in restaurants in and around Boston and still discuss food and nutrition and diet, and she and I can still get each other going in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, just like we did when she was sixteen.

Back in June, Bob and I attended the high school graduation party for a young friend of ours we’ve known since she was six. (She won my heart at that age by telling friends of her parents that I was a ballerina. When everyone looked at her in shock and told her I wasn’t, she said, “Well, I mean, she looks like a ballerina.”) We’ve seen her pass through her American Girl stage, and we’ve watched her develop a love of horses and riding. But now she’s a writer, beginning her freshman year of college, and working on her first novel. And you don’t know joy until you’ve talked with someone whose six-year-old self is still so there, but who is now able to discuss so enthusiastically books and stories and her passion for writing with you. What fun it was to meet friends of hers who were just as excited about these topics as she was (not to mention her very cute and properly-devoted boyfriend. Can’t have any bad boyfriends on the scene, you know).

Speaking of budding writers, I have another young friend, I’ve also known since he was six, who’s now ten. He’s an avid reader, and he, too, began working on a novel last year. He shares my passion for board games and is always willing to drop everything to play one. His little sister, who is now seven, and I share a very special bond, because her name happens to be Emily, and when she met me at age three, I was the only other Emily she’d ever known. She likes to play board games, too, most especially if she can be on my team. She and I are hotdog buddies, since her mom doesn’t eat them, and I’ve been known to join them on trips to the hotdog stand (we’re going on what will probably be our last trip to the hotdog stand tomorrow for lunch). I can’t imagine I’m going to be as devoted to these two when they’re twenty-one as I am now, but past experience tells me I will be.

And then there’s my three-year-old neighbor, who takes my hand in his and says, “Let’s go inside your house and see what we can find,” who loves to hug and cuddle when he’s not running around or trying to stand on his head, and who flatters me to no end by wanting me, not his mother, to help get him through the scary parts of Finding Nemo (despite his assurance that he likes “creepy, scary” movies best. A boy after my own heart, huh?). He’s about to be a big brother to twins, and I so wish I were going to be around to witness that (not to mention help his poor mother and father. Can you imagine a three-year-old and infant twins, all boys?) Will he still have this kind of hold on my heart when he’s a senior in high school? I’m sure he will.

So, when people look wistfully at children and talk about how sad it is that they have to grow up, I don’t tend to find myself agreeing. Yes, it’s very sad for the children: they’re going to have to deal with things like betrayal and broken hearts and unfulfilled dreams. My only hope is that they’ll still let me be a part of their lives to provide a shoulder to cry on. As far as being sad for me, though, I’m not: I can’t wait to see them at the next stage.