Less MS, more old
I am old enough to be this little guy’s grandmother. It might be a leap, but in actuality, I am old enough to be his great grandmother too.
When the hell did that happen????
It just doesn’t seem real but there it is, the cold, hard truth.
This baby is my most recent nephew and he is awesome. So smiley and adorable..
I am an aunt to five and a great aunt to two and somewhere along the line the plans to be a mother disappeared from my womb, uh, I mean, world.
When I was a kid, a mom was all I wanted to be.
Well, not all…. I also wanted to be a veterinarian, a waitress, an author, a rock star and a babysitter. Through many various career changes, I’ve managed to be three of the six.
I’ll let you guess which three.
But mom was the one I thought would be a given. Then the hands of my biological clock spun way too fast and eventually fell off the face of the timekeeper. I tried though, even as a kid myself.
Always eager to put a full effort into my goals, once when I was eight, I attempted to kidnap a baby to bring home and raise as my own, with my mom’s help of course. I was in my safe little town, hanging out by myself at the bottom of my tiny, safe street where there were several shops to accommodate the tourists who pilgrimaged to our town in the warmer months; much like the original pilgrims who had the misfortune of showing up in the off season.
There was a baby napping in her carriage outside one store and no adults to be had. I watched as the baby woke up and checked out her surroundings. I went over and made baby talk and she gave me a gummy smile.
Still no parents.
I played peek-a-boo and the baby giggled.
Still no parents.
I decided the best thing to do was wheel the carriage, baby and all, up the street to my house when a mom like person came out to the store and thanked me for keeping her baby company.
Damn!
So close!
Apparently, she had the mom skill of shopping for nautical tourist junk while also keeping an eye on her child. It was the 70’s but it still seemed irresponsible to my young brain.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew the chance of being able to keep the baby wasn’t likely as I had yet to be able to keep any of the many dogs I also dragged home. But I just knew that one day, the authorities wouldn’t be able to find the owners and I would get to keep one. If it was possible with dogs, might it also be possible with babies?
Alas, no.
I grew up and the opportunities to be a mom just didn’t present themselves. I am a great aunt though. Biologically, I am even a GREAT great aunt to two, so I think double greats are just, well, great!
Back to this adorable little guy. Peter and I took a road trip vacation with the plan to meet him and spend time with his also adorable big sister.
We had other plans too, like relaxing and visiting other family members but seeing the kids was the most exciting part for me. Though not a mom, as an aunt I try to enjoy every second.
I had long accepted that there was no more biological clock for me.
That is, until the evening before we set off where Peter hoped to be on the road by 5 AM and I asked him if he was setting an alarm.
“No,” he said, “my biological bladder will wake me up in plenty of time.”
And he was right. At 4 AM he was awake and then I was too. It seems my biological clock has been replaced by my biological bladder which is way less fun and fulfilling but in reality, now in my 50’s, is wicked important!
Peter is also in his 50’s and it seems our biological bladders rule the world. I guess this is dating for Gen X’ers. We often meet in the middle of the night just outside my side of the bed for a quick hug before we blindly stumble to the bathroom, often several times in one sleep cycle.
And you know how folks say that women who spend a ton of time together will notice their biological clocks tuning into the same frequency, causing their menstrual cycles to occur at the same time? So too with our biological bladders!
It is not just the middle of the night where our bladders sound the silent wake up alarm, and where one might argue that we just woke each other up crawling out of bed, but on the road trip too. We would drive for a bit, maybe cross a state line or two, when I would just be thinking it was about time to stop, when Peter would mention that we should look for a rest area soon.
Gone are the days when I didn’t have to worry about my bladder so much. Those days left at about the same time I stopped worrying about my biological clock.
Funny how that happens.
At first, I thought my bladder clock was multiple sclerosis related.
When I was first diagnosed, I didn’t have a biological bladder clock so much as I had a biological bladder alarm that I couldn’t shut off. It would just ring, buzz or beep all day long, most loudly and obnoxiously at night.
Then my neurologist gave me some meds that have greatly quieted that annoyance.
Now it seems I have a regular, old, aging biological bladder that has at least synched nicely with my sweetheart’s.
Thankfully, MS let me have a wonderful trip.
The weather wasn’t too hot or too cold and being with family very young to mostly our age, the events and partying were kept a reasonable time structure MS and aging could handle.
We rested. We relaxed. We visited.
And we had a great time.
The aging issue was the more prevalent of biological difficulties but with our biological bladders working together, we managed.
Though there was the time when my brother, Peter and I took my niece to the park. With Peter appreciating my need to bond with my niece and my brother being quite the talker, he is my brother after all, they stood to the side chatting away while I did my best to keep up with the dear three year old while she ran from one play structure to another, bonding when I would finally catch up to her by insisting I push her on something, be it a swing or a seesaw. At one point she turned to me and said, “let’s go exercise.”
What the hell had we BEEN doing??
Turns out there was a separate section of the park with outdoor exercise equipment for adults that she wanted to climb on. It’s probably not appreciated by the park users for kids to be in this section, but I figured screw it- I only see her twice a year and so I am allowed to let her do what she wants those times.
Plus, that section was a lot smaller, way less exhausting running around.
(How on Earth does her fabulous mother keep up? Oh right, she is about twenty years younger than me!)
Maybe there’s a reason why your biological clock starts to fail after a certain number of years.
But with age, comes wisdom.
“I think Daddy and Peter are lost. Let’s go find them. We better walk slowly so we don’t miss them.”
Maybe sometimes, clocks, whether biological or bladder, work just the way you need them too, whether you like it or not.
