So much of my younger life was spent oriented to a finish line of my own creation: finish high school. Get into college. Finish college. Secure a career. Get married. Have kids. One by one, I ticked off these finish lines as I passed them, the journey to some longer (and more fraught) than others. The way my therapist described the academic/professional one in particular as I was graduating from my postdoc program and trying to figure out what to do next, my life had been a triangle, and I had travelled from base to apex, everything coming to a point. So what was after the point?
At that time, it was a new triangle, a new wide base and journey that took me to New York, a new narrowing of purpose toward a more specific faith and a certain person and a rooftop proposal and a move and a wedding day.
And then…yet another base. Domestic life, a new home, two kids. The ideas narrowing to actualities. To people. To a different, but more real, reality than I’d envisioned. I admit I lived to get past certain things, to check off a box or cross a line and turn life into events, into achievements, to put behind me for the next thing.
I’m learning that if I look at it in terms of finish lines, they don’t move as much as become starting lines. But that’s exhausting, really, because who has the energy to go from one race to another? To turn life into scenery to pass by?
Yesterday, Little Brother ran in the area’s school-wide cross-country event. He woke complaining of a headache, then a fever, neither of which were particularly true but as a former kid who faked being sick, I recognised the symptoms for what they were, avoidance, and talked through it with him. “The one thing you have to do,” I told him, “is have fun.” I went on to make some jokes about blasting farts along the way, none of which made him smile or laugh that hard. Only when we got to school and his friends admitted they were nervous did I see him begin to relax, his signature smile finally making an appearance.
This is the kid who puts all the pressure on himself, who says he knows he doesn’t have to be perfect then proceeds to try anyway, who is still learning that his worth is not tied up in what he does. In other words, he’s me for most of my life. And I’m running alongside him, trying to slow him down so he can breathe.
His nervousness reappeared when he got on the bus, and only when we met him at the track did that smile come back as he described the fun ride over, but still with eyes scanning the area, looking for the next thing. At one point we sat together to watch the girls’ race and one of the Voldemort-adjacent adults from The Event Previously Discussed appeared in front of us, talking to his kid: “Are you a winner? Yeah, you’re a WINNER!” LB looked over at me, I said, “Gross,” and we both laughed. He was ready.
And so he ran. Two loops, two kilometres, somehow ending up keeping pace with and running alongside one of the kids who had previously accused him of cheating, which I think is because life is hilarious and he’s a better person than I am, so all the photos I have of the race itself have that kid in them too. I ran between two points on the loop to yell for him, and The Husband and TK were stationed at another point. We had him covered, as much as possible, but he still was on his own most of the time. Such is life, I guess, when you’re keeping up not only with your own “finish lines” but those of your kids as well.
He ran the whole way, and I knew how he’d feel at the end because I’ve been there too: the exhaustion, the euphoria, the relief…and then, the next thing, all of life one thing building on the next, with barely time to breathe unless you stop and make yourself do just that: breathe. Look. Live.
He neared the end of the second loop, and I ran toward this finish line as he did, meeting him there, giving him a place not just to finish, but to rest. To breathe.