My sister-in-law and niece are here, so I may not be blogging (or against-the-odds-accidentally-conceiving) for the next few days.
Milo is starting a campaign to go to sleepaway camp next summer. I’m for it. I think he’ll be the perfect age, and I think he’ll love it. Daniel is reacting with something like blind panic. “He’s too young. He’s too young to go away for two months.” It’s not two months, he’s not too young, or he won’t be next year. Daniel can’t bear to let go of Milo, to see that he’s moving steadily into his own realm, and this will only accelerate.
This infuriates me. I have been having to let go of my treasures and dreams for years. I am having to let go even now, and permanently. I have no patience for Daniel’s panic. It hardens my heart. I should be overflowing with sympathy and understanding, but I feel mostly anger. It’s a nasty confluence of things — hopes, hypotheses, first reactions, last chances.
And this blind panic reminds me of Daniel’s attitudes and anxieties about the second child generally, so all that pain starts to resonate again. You wouldn’t know it about Daniel, who appears very cerebral and claims to venerate reason, but he is (or, to be fair, he can be, he sometimes is) a pinball, careening from one strong, irrational feeling to another. He uses his considerable intellect to dress up his overwhelming feelings with words and reasons. I see that now. It may be taking the edge off my anger, but it may not.
Updated, after a night’s sleep and reflection: I am not angry. Maybe my intention not to be pissed off at Daniel is working. But I am still very stirred up — maybe a little bit angry. The reason to have more than one child is that the sweetness is so fast moving. They go to summer camp. They go to college. They get married (or not) and go on vacation without you. They have their whole grown up lives. Having two or three or a dozen gives you that many more chances to catch that fast-moving sweetness, so that when one launches, you have the comfort of the other(s). And by the time the last one launches, you’ve had time to get used to it. Having more than one is having compassion for yourself as a parent. It cushions some of the regular, workaday, necessary heartbreaks.
Another Door 