Let It In/Out

I’m so sick of pretty, I want something true, don’t you?

The Kid has a pretty strict policy when it comes to guests. And by that I mean, when it’s time to go? He lets you know. It’s hard to overstay your welcome when a ten-year-old is telling you on repeat that you need to leave, or when he stage whispers to his mother in front of you, “This playdate has reached its end.”

I love this, and my friends accept it (many of them also love it), for its honesty and for the fact that it’s often what everyone is thinking anyway–he just gives voice to the thought. TK is chock-full of boundaries, and at least some of this must come from me, as I, too, never met a boundary I didn’t like…and hold close like a warm blanket.

But also, I shun them–or at least am forced by life to reject them. A month spent in hotel rooms as a family has led to industrial-grade clinginess from the kids, their voices shouting “MOM?!?” anytime I’m not in view, their footsteps clambering up the stairs whenever I dare ascend them. Every shower I take has “Alvin and the Chipmunks” as its soundtrack (though yesterday they read, TK silently while my bath was accompanied by Little Brother’s narration of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.)

I know this will change with time: they’ll feel safe in their own home again and won’t follow us around. One day, they’ll even reach that stage where they don’t want us around, privacy their preferred state. But for now, the boundaries are sparse.

I think the boundaries I gravitate toward are the ones (that I hope) keep the bullshit out: the avoidance of surface-level conversations (Sartre could have been more specific: hell is not just other people, but a specific kind of other people), of Instagram-filtered moments, of a life reduced to memes, rather than the raw reality of truthful encounters. Like the time last week, when my hairdresser mentioned the loss of her daughter three years ago, which was news to me, and instead of talking about what we might each have for lunch that day, we got down into the verbal trenches of life.

Of course, these moments aren’t always possible; boundaries must often be erected (see: me begging The Husband not to use the word penis again during this year’s parent-teacher conference, don’t ask); not every creature recognises or respects personal space (did you know that caterpillars can sting the hell out of you? Because I just learned this information the hard way).

So my boys will know more about tampon usage than I did at their age even as I circle the block to avoid another talk about the weather (there is an app for that, you know). Life is too much one moment, not enough the next. My head spins at my own double standards and contradictions: rigidity followed by flexibility, a strong pull toward home in a life filled with wandering, doubts pockmarking deep faith. All held by a grace that leads us, on a Sunday morning, to the water, where the four of us float and ride, drifting away and reconnecting, held by boundary-less love.

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