Jun
20
I wish I could mix a bit of the endlessness of January into this month because time is flying right by. This summer is going to be in the rearview before I know it and then it will be fall and my youngest will be off to college and then it will be the holidays again hellllllp.
Well do not fear that I am not making the most of Oregon’s precious summer months for today I have a mammogram appointment! They have sent me approximately four thousand notifications about it and each time I have been semi-convinced that they have the date wrong because who has a mammogram on a Saturday? But upon checking it appears that the imaging center is open all weekend so that’s good news for everyone but the staff and the dignity of my boobs.
I do feel bad for those from the small titty committee because I’m sure the process is even more awkward when you don’t have much to work with but thankfully (?) I have bountiful non-taut funbags (fun not guaranteed) and probably they could yank all my business over and get the scans they need while I stood in the doorway and scrolled my phone. As I recall the only uncomfortable part is when the machine squishes you in a vise clamp and there’s a brief moment that’s similar to when you wonder if the blood pressure cuff is going to tighten forever until it amputates your arm, although of course there’s also the part where they’re like YOU DIDN’T WEAR DEODORANT DID YOU??? and also the part where your sad little pile of clothes sits there with the bra carefully hidden between layers as though someone was going to yank it out and parade it through the waiting room.
Age gracefully, people say, but there are so many non graceful aspects of it! How about all these skin tags, for one thing. Or the deal where I have to hold objects at arm’s length while scrunching my face like Gilbert Godfried or I can’t see jack shit. What about that time I had to poop in a box and mail it off to be evaluated??? I feel like every yearly checkup is now just a list of things I need to have tested to make sure my warranties aren’t running out yet, along with a reminder to get my shingles vaccine already.
And I know it’s convenient to blame the patriarchy for everything but don’t you have the feeling that if men needed mammograms there would be like booths in drugstores where you step inside fully clothed and boop, it’s done, and you get a lollipop afterwards.
Jun
9
Dylan’s high school graduation was last Saturday evening. Like Riley’s, it was held at our local performing arts theater, a large downtown venue that I am grateful is inside and has better-than-folding-chairs seating. I had learned from experience with Riley’s graduating class that it’s best to get there plenty early and then I added some padding to that to allow myself time for 1) parking, 2) walking there in a pair of comfortable but still mobility-limiting heels, and 3) worming my way to the front for an unobstructed view. Plus 15 extra minutes just in case and 10 more minutes to be on the super safe side. You know, air travel math: fuck it, I’m heading there now, yeah I know the airport is 7 miles away and the flight is tomorrow afternoon.
I was so close to the stage and during the long procession I recognized several kids I hadn’t seen since elementary or middle school. In the midst of this coming of age moment, the shutter-flash of faces that jumped before my very eyes from soft baby cheeks to young adults. Everyone so grown now, so tall in their emerald gowns, bearing such tender fading traces of childhood.
As for the event itself, it felt like the perfect amount of pomp. A short intro from the principal, a couple of student performances and speeches, then right to commencement. In the video I captured of Dylan walking for his diploma the focus briefly blurs, an effect of the camera momentarily zeroing in on a closer object but in replay it seems like my own vision blinking back tears.
Oh, I didn’t cry that much. There was the welling up that happened during the processional as all the kids filed in, I’m not made of STONE. And when the caps went flying at the end (seems to me that a few beach balls also manifested out of thin air), there’s just something so pure and giddy about that moment. A full-bodied sense of relief and celebration and wild glee.
This was not a shared experience for me and that held some weight, to walk in there alone and sit by myself. But I did not feel like I thought I might: self-conscious, distracted. Instead I felt complete and content in my purpose. Distilled. Nothing mattered but this milestone and the fact that I was there to see it.
Hugging him afterwards, I could swear he was even taller. A whole-ass legal adult person, my god, and Riley was there too, my two littles-turned-bigs. I could remember talking about them graduating high school, back when it seemed an inconceivable, impossible distance from ever really happening.
And now Dylan is off to college in the fall. It’s all unfolding in the best kinds of ways — curiosity, motivation, independence — and that is the whammy of parenting, that the ideal outcomes are still going to crush your heart. Go off into the world is the goal, even as you wish they never, ever would.
Still, I’m so grateful for every bit of it. Everything hard, everything easy, everything that I wish I could re-savor and everything I wish I had done differently. It all led to here, to me bursting with bittersweet pride on graduation night, seeing with my own eyes that no matter what, I have two incredible kids who have forged their own individual bright paths.
Another ending, another beginning. A part of me, apart from me. How lucky I am to have had it all.
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