Grown Ups

We were just babies then, we look so young in the picture. It was only eight years ago, but it seems like a lifetime. Don is wearing his Galactic Cowboys tshirt and I am roly poly with shiny curls eating a popsicle waiting for our baby to be born. My eyes sting when I see how innocent we were, happy with the irrational expectation of children that everything would always be okay. We lived in blessed ignorance of specialists and therapists and what it means when doctors avoid your gaze and look at their shoes.

I am a grown up now, with gray hairs and a serenity and connection with God I never thought possible. My life is a paradox of joy and grief and I have a hard time explaining that to people. I suspect my closest friends understand that everyday my heart breaks and breaks again, with beauty and sadness and sweet and bitter tears mixed together. That is my existence, and at the end of the day I go to sleep with a prayer of thanksgiving. I have few complaints.

My husband seems to have stayed the same in many ways. He is still just as excited about a new band he hears, he is still in love with me and the kids. He is just as optimistic and sure that his music will go somewhere as he was in 1997. He is kind and willing to do whatever is put before him. He is still the first person to offer his seat to an old lady on the bus. He still likes the Galactic Cowboys.

At times I have resented his perpetual youth, his cheerful optimism, his ability to be in the moment and to always believe the best is just around the corner. I feel my soul has aged, and his has not had to. I wonder if he misses the old me. Sometimes I do. I wonder sadly if he wishes he was still single, going to concerts, making music in his studio in the basement.

Last night we drove home from a training session for a new therapy that could change our developmentally disabled son's life. It involves long hours of hard work and consistency, in addition to all we do now. At the very least it could teach our son independence, and possibly harvest what we know is in there, a beautiful mind to match his beautiful face and soul. I want this so badly I can hardly breath, and I want to tell my husband, so he knows we must do this.
He will have to get serious, I want to tell him. Grow up. Take on some responsibility. I have this speech prepared and I turn to him, and I see what I have not seen before, steely determination to match my own. Like our son there is more to my husband that meets the eye, and perhaps me too. Maybe that girl with the popsicle isn't completely gone, either. Maybe there are irrational expectations of happiness yet to be had.