Last Dance, Last Chance, For Love

February 12, 2009 | Category: Mother to the First Power

Tomorrow night, Bear tests at the Karate School. If he is successful, he will walk away a black belt.

I was talking to an old friend this afternoon, and we go back. Way back. I'm talking rainbow suspenders, Mork & Mindy, and Donna Summer. I'm talking roller skates, the kind that have four big wheels on them.

And I was saying, how strange it was. To be in my 30's when I became a mom. Sort of set in my ways. The kitchen organized the way I like it. Long Sunday mornings spent with a chai and the Sunday paper. Making love in the middle of the day, right there on the couch.

Then Bear came along, and it was all changed. Completely, utterly, changed. Like everything that used to be, all the sleepy weekends and privacy? Was gone. In its place, a permanent conversation with this little person. A boy who touched everything, moved everything, made chaos out of everything.

In a way, my whole world had a new axis. And to be completely sappy about it - I was thrilled.

Tomorrow night he attempts to become a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. A black belt!

I'm so proud of him. Bursting. This the way it should be, of course. He's earned it.

Yet, in my son's milestones, I also see the path he takes away from me. Back to a time when his little freckled face will no longer hop onto the bed first thing in the morning. When his voice will deepen, and then slip away to a different place - his place in the world.

So I'm also a little sad. Selfishly. Stupidly. And, maybe? Humanly.

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