Where is the off button?

I think every parent in my generation has had at least one electronic toy in their house that they have explained to their child that the toy must be broken if it doesn’t turn on, when in reality the parent knows that the batteries are just dead.  Because what damned manufacturing company ever thought it would be a good idea to make a noisy toy that doesn’t have a power button, or at the very least a VOLUME button?  I think our last toy that did that was around age 18 months, and that was when I started buying toys with no lights and no sounds.  For friends’ kids too.

Being a parent?  That’s kind of like having the loudest, brightest, biggest, electronic toy that requires interaction from you randomly every 15 seconds to 10 minutes from sometimes 5 am, but most of the time 7 am, until let’s hope it’s always 8 pm because 8 pm is my absolute limit.  AND.THERE.IS.NO.OFF.BUTTON.

When Charlotte first came home it was a novel idea to have two children.  Somewhere a long the way I picked up this ideal version of motherhood and though how amazing it would be to have twins.  Then reality hit with two babies and it was so far from ideal that it was merely a test in survival.  It got a lot easier in toddlerhood and I felt lucky to be going through stages only once.  Age 3 was LONG and, well, three year olds are assholes.  Then we hit the magical age of 4 where they had more emotional control, and were suddenly miniature inquisitive humans.  But here we are at 6.  We have encouraged curiosity.  We have rewarded question and challenge.  We have expected independence.  And we are reaping what we have sowed. 

I just don’t think I can answer one single more question.  Or I am seriously considering setting parenting questioning hours.  Between the hours of 6 pm and 7 pm they can ask as many questions as they desire.  Outside of those hours, depends on my mood.  Or maybe I could just teach them how to Google.  Because the questions.  OMG the incessant questions.  From two of them.  All day.  About everything – if they are curious, if they lack confidence, or need clarity, or want to challenge the boundaries.  This too shall pass?  No?  WELL DON’T TELL ME.

I was talking to Chris the other night on the way to a concert.  As the day before Valentine’s Day I was thinking about the times people have asked me, how did you know Chris was the one?  And even not being put on the spot to answer, I still couldn’t answer that question to myself.  So I asked him, how did he know I was the one? (Can you believe that after 10 years of marriage and almost 14 years together, I have never asked him that question?)

He took a minute and he said, “Because I didn’t get bored.  No matter how much time passed, how much time we spent together, or how much I got to know you, I never got bored.”  His answer so resonated with me, that I know his answer is my answer, too.  It is not just this way for him and why he is the one, but also for all other areas of my life.  I seek and enjoy challenge in my life.  I expect to be challenged in my life, to overcome, to achieve.  And when I’m not challenged, I lose interest.  I move on. 

It is why I enjoy the learning process so much.  It is why I pursue the most difficult avenue.  It is why ballet intrigues me so.  It doesn’t get easier.  I just get better.

What I realized though, is I work to my absolute maximum achievement potential.  I will never be a prima ballerina, but I will very likely learn how to dance on pointe and have a paying audience watch me dance.  I will never have my photos world-renowned, but I very likely could start a photography business, if I so choose. 

Parenting is a different kind of challenge.  It isn’t one that I can learn in a year.  It is something doesn’t really have any instruction.  It is a cumulative sum, of a vast number of decisions, made every single day, for over a period of 25 years.  The worst part is that I feel like I won’t know the the impact of those cumulative decisions, until year 25.  Or later.

And that for me, leaves me nearly paralyzed with anxiety.  It is another person’s life that is being affected by my everyday decision making.  It makes me seek all the fun, carefree moments with my children.  I wish life could just be a series of events that only subsist of birthday parties, bowling, spending hours playing video games, eating candy by the handfuls, and playing outside at the park.  I wish it could only be the carefree days and moments, instead of the I.lose.my.temper.at.stupid.shit.my.kids.say.or.do days.  Too many of those kind of tough days leaves me feeling depleted, makes me feel like the world’s worst parent, and takes all the joy out of it.

I need to figure out a way to make more of the day to day life feel like the carefree moments.  The days that I get to be a kid right along side my children are the moments that silence the anxiety, silence the temper, give me an unlimited well of patience.  Those moments are the off button.