They piled off the bus, dropping pumpkins and scarves, and moving like syrup across a plate. Slow.

My oldest went with her great-grandma and cousin to a farm yesterday. They bounced along in a wagon pulled by a tractor. “It was a hayride with no hay. We said, ‘Why do you call it a hayride then?'” They ate hot dogs, drank chocolate milk, and “visited” all the way back.
This is being recounted in the lobby of the Senior Center while the kids are playing Pass-The-Skull, a new, unofficial game that can arouse a fierce competitive nature in even the shyest of personalities.

As you may have guessed, I am more interested in the elderly hovering around the glass entryway than the triangle of kids on the floor. I study their interactions through the smell of cafeteria food and moth balls. It’s a potpourri all its own, and it’s my future.

“I didn’t know that was your husband until he said, ‘Thanks for helping my wife.'” Hunched Shoulders is smiling, the words coming out intermittently. “I was surprised because you two are so different. You are quiet and he is very talkative.”
Black Tennis Shoes and High-water Slacks is smiling back, shifting her feet. And I’m thinking, Simmer down you sweeties. One of you is still wearing a ring.

I spot another couple. They are mingling, working the social circle of this wrinkle parade I find so unbelievably adorable. I start to wonder if they have the same conversations they’ve always had, just evolved.
“Herb, does this fanny pack look OK or does it make my butt look more saggy?”
“It’s fine, Maude, but why are you wearing those pointy shoes?”
“Well, I don’t want to look like a square. I may be old but I ain’t dead yet. Here, put your tie on. I’m not going to the potluck with you dressed like that.”

This morning I’m talking generations of behavior with my husband. Wounds, traditions, and memories passed through the ages, contributing to the potluck that is us. What things are we keeping? What will we start in our family? What do we not want to keep going down the line?

“Oh, I worry for our kids. I don’t want them to struggle so hard and I just feel like what we do isn’t enough.”
“I know.”

It isn’t. It never will be. It Can. Not. Be.

All of it hits me faster than I want to accept it. This parenting, it will never be enough to keep them from making mistakes, from pain, or from hardship. Because life isn’t meant to be easy, it’s meant to be lived. And that entails the aforementioned.

Dang it.

It’s a perfect design, really. At some point we have to choose. We have to do our own seeking, our own learning, our own discovery of who am I and who is God.
Where do I find the most peace, contentment, connection? Where do I learn the most about how I relate, where I fail people, how I love or don’t love well, the lies to which I cling, my hopes, my longings, that I’m actually quite capable and good at some things, or that time and again no matter the journey-I find myself back on the lap of God? In the muck and mire of the day.

Am I willing to be the kind of parent that wants this for her kids?

Yes, no, yes, but I don’t think I mean it, OK yes, I don’t know, ultimately…yes. It will rip my heart out, I can only say it in a weak whisper, but yes.
And they’ll need someone who can go through it with them.

So here I am, ticket in hand for the rollercoaster that’s ahead.