Life Would Be Better, If Time Ran Backwards

I had the pleasure today of spending some time with my son, he was plowing the driveway and motioned to me to come sit in his truck.

Moments like that are rare for him and I. I spend a lot of time with his wife, I spend most of my time with his daughter, but just me and him- it doesn't happen very often. He is busy. He will be 25 in a few days and he has a lot on his plate. Much more than I did at his age.

My son and I are a lot alike in some ways and worlds apart in others. I bought my first house when I was 38- he bought his when he was 21. He is much more conservative than I am - it's important to him that his bills get paid on time and that he has stability- I never outwardly cared about that stuff and was much more of an adventurer. While we are both Type A personalities ready to erupt with a red hot explosion of molten emotions, we deal with it differently. I am not sure which of us is the most effective, or the least.

One chunk of our conversation today was about how much time he spends away from home. I know everyone rags on him about it because he is very devoted to work and he gets dragged in a lot of different directions. I try hard to admire that career devotion but also remind him that at the end of life, what is going to matter is the ones who were home, not the ones at work. I am living proof of that.

As we talked I told him that I wished that life was lived backwards. I wish that during his childhood I had been able to be with him every second and that after he was on his own, then I could have started my career. I wish that's what he was able to do too. It doesn't even make sense to me now, that I spent the first 18 years of his life juggling so many things, and now that he is all grown up and needs very little from me, I have all of the time in the world. It's not even fair and reasonable.

I should have had those years with him- just as he should have those years with his daughter. If I could change things I would willingly be the one working 70 hours a week so that he didn't have to. And when Audrey is grown and on her own, then my son can work 70 hours a week so she didn't have to. Who ever started this time continuum where we spend all of our child's lives busting our ass and then when they don't need us anymore we are left with nothing but time to sulk in the loneliness and ponder the meaning of existence?

I know not everyone thinks like me. I know people who could not wait for their kids to grow up and be gone so they could start their own life. I am just not one of those people. There was never a day in my sons childhood that I wished that- if anything, I wished the opposite and that's what I try to remind him of now- they grow up in the blink of an eye.

Yet I am also careful where I tread as I certainly don't claim to have always done everything right and I can remember many years ago going to a counselor (and not a very good one) and telling her that I was just overwhelmed with stress and never had enough time for all I was responsible for. I remember what she said to me "then you have to give up one of the things that make you feel that way" OK- proper answer to maybe a married housewife who is complaining that her yoga class interferes with her PTA meetings and getting her kids to soccer practice, but that answer held no validity to me. I said to her, "which should I give up? My job? My son? Or my home?" She looked at me pissed off, I looked at her like she was clueless and we parted ways. She failed to understand that those things were all I had and none of them could be given up. That's how I see my son now too, that's why I understand his life, his pressure and how there isn't room to give up anything to slow yourself down.

That's why I wish time ran backwards, so that he could enjoy these years, but I know that isn't going to happen and the best that can be done is to find a way to strike a balance- I just wish I knew how to help him do that.

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