All the Afternoons in the World

Why I have to do everything all at once

I'm sorry I was so male-focused in my reading years as a young person. I only ever read books written by men because I wanted to be like them. Growing up in a house full of women, I preferred the company of boys. Less drama. More fun. Plus, I was boy-crazy, and boys liked girls who liked boys. Right?

Looking back now, I wish I’d read more Didion. Reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem for the first time, she seems like a kindred spirit, though I wonder if it would have hit as hard as it does now. (Will the 19-year-old undergrads in my class even get it at all?) Reading my husband bits and pieces from Goodbye to All That struck me as the essay I wish I had written when I left New York at 30. Joan and my 20s in New York were very similar, except she was in magazines and I was in books. Plus, being a military daughter who moved a lot, I imagine she was more worldly and more educated than I was—me, a college dropout, just off the bus from the Deep South. She writes about a day when she let things and experiences float over her without a care in the world because she was “not then guilt-ridden about spending afternoons that way” because she still had “all the afternoons in the world.”

Had I read those words back then, would I have understood them as well as I do now?

When I was mothering, everything was focused on my son. Being and doing for him, making his life the best that I could. I often failed miserably at that because I could never live up to the expectations in my own head. This culminated in monthly PMS-fueled explosions where I would reach the end of my own rope (cut way way too short, BTW) and grow dragon horns and spit flames. I think my son’s childhood was 90% utterly magical and 10% knightly, as it was up to him to fight off my hormone dragon in his own ways. I wish I could take back all those afternoons when my patience was thin, and I was incapable of managing my emotions (logistically and chemically). I suppose that is the curse of being a woman. You are full of all the love in the universe and still expected to weather pain (physical and emotional) in the most mammoth ways. We are too alike, him and me. If we got cross at one another, neither of us would back down, and a colossal geyser of dramatics would erupt. After a fight over something that seems inconsequential now (cell phone use, not eating dinner, homework, an unkept room?), I always asked him “if I’d crushed his spirit.” The answer was always no, but looking back now, I know he wanted to say yes. I know my spirit was crushed by all those wasted afternoons of self-induced agony. There is no way he survived it all unscathed.

Smothered in rage and adoration, as they say.

That boy was my muse. Those years of sewing banners, making birthday parties and playdates, taking pictures, building forts, taking walks, making movies, Legos, toy animals, cakes, macaroni and cheese, driving to this and that, and all over, were well spent. I created the suburban, artsy, abundant childhood that I never had compared to the rural, artsy, feral one my artist mother left my sisters and me to explore on our own. Where I was unsupervised and free range, my son had a constant sidekick and cruise director. We went and saw and did it all. Those years were the best ones of my life. My only regret is wishing I’d flipped out less. I wish I’d obsessed over him less and taken more time for myself so that the time with him didn’t feel so loaded and important.

So that, 20 years later, I didn’t feel so left behind.

I am 52 now. Making up for lost time. I am trying to schedule my days just like I did my sons so that every moment is in the making or doing. I understand that I no longer have all the afternoons in the world. That understanding sits right on the surface for me, simmering, sitting at almost a boil, waiting to bubble up. As the lid on my pot quivers and spits, I know I should learn to relax and take age in stride, but I’ve wasted too much time already.

There is still so much left to do.