I may never go to Disneyland
A reflection on midlife, time travel, and the too muchness of it all
I have a fascinating episode out this week of my Slate podcast—”How to Rethink Retirement.” It includes the captivating phrases of “rugged flexibility” and “psychological immune system.” Take a listen and tell me what you think! And on to our regularly scheduled programming…
Last weekend I time traveled.
I lay in bed upon waking up and read a complex and captivating novel—Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar—for hours on end. I moved when I wanted to move. I stayed still when I wanted to stay still. I forgot about meal times and just ate when I was hungry. I went to a protest alone and cried quietly while people prayed. I left when I wanted to leave. No one complained about being cold or tired or needing a snack. I went to an art opening. I talked to the artist about her craft and domesticity. I went to a flamenco show. I admired the singer’s shoulder pads and eaves dropped on other people’s conversations. I lost track of time. I got a tarot reading. I forgot I was a mother.
Except when I would remember. I would walk past my kids’ rooms—my 7-year-old’s, an absolute tornado of Playmobil, doll furniture, Care Bear stuffed animals, and various illegible secret notes, and my 10-year-old’s an explosion of Taylor Swift and cat paraphernalia, Squishamallows, and “cute” art—and reel. And it was suddenly like my 27-year-old self—who, indeed, read novels in bed and went to protests alone and forgot to eat meals at meals times—was in dialogue with my 44-year-old self:
Holy shit! That’s a lot!
Those are your children’s rooms, dude. You are a mother.
Wow, I guess I am. It seems like a lot.
It is a lot.
For the part of me that had time traveled, it was like entering the set of a play. It was a cozy play, an interesting play, a play with a lot of detail and creativity, but one that overwhelmed me nonetheless. It seemed a little impossible, all the tiny details in this main character’s head—the summer camp wait lists and the laundry and the sadness over not being invited to the birthday party and the spreadsheet about drop offs and pick ups and the husband’s Amazon packages and the school meetings and the impending puberty. Every damn day? she asked the main character, a little tired at even the thought of it all.
Every damn day. And, yes, it is too much. And it also so unbearably beautiful. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful and unexpected it all is.
Where, you might be wondering now, were the children and the husband? Disneyland. They were riding in the eternally rotating teacups and meeting Mickey Mouse (“He took a break from filming to meet us, Mom!”) and eating funnel cakes and having the time of their frickin’ lives while the mom stayed home and time traveled to become her 27-year-old self. This fact seems very polarizing. Either people think this mom—me, as it were—is either a genius or a monster. The husband is definitely a hero by all accounts.
In any case, this existential tear in the fabric has left me—the 44-year-old mom (the kids and husband have returned)—with this visceral sense of just how full to the absolute brim and spilling over my life is and how much I love it, all while being ravenously nostalgic for the life I used to lead, the one with my own body as the only body I had to care for (and even that was a loosey goosey commitment), the one where art was central and time flowed more freely and many things were sort of half-assed and lonely and sometimes romantic.
I love my life now. I miss my life then. It’s all in one big never ending (until it ends, which all lives do) conversation about care and art and bodies and love and protest and getting older and more grateful for every little Playmobile figure that hurts when you step on it but means you have a kid with an imagination and what a frickin’ miracle is that. These seasons of life we live overlap, sure, but they rarely fold in on themselves with this quality I have just experienced—almost like two dots two decades apart on a timeline curled over and lined up ever so briefly.
My younger self inhabited the space of my older self and it allowed me to register the enormity of where I’ve landed at this swollen stage of life—the daily grind and delight of caring for small-ish children alongside the deep love and fretting over aging parents alongside the satisfaction of work I feel so lucky to do alongside the stunning beauty of so many deep and real friendships alongside the ever evolving love I have with my husband alongside…alongside…alongside…
There are so many alongsides when you are in your mid-40s. It’s special to peel back all the layers for a couple of days and lay down alone in a bed and marvel at it all, admitting that it’s more than you ever could have imagined and sometimes too much and also, always, filthy rich with meaning. I may never go to Disneyland. I am both genius and monster. My 27-year-old self, tucked inside my 44-year-old self, thinks it’s all pretty magical.
Courtney’s steam of inspiration flows on, moving us to greater reflection and hopefully self awareness. I’m in my mid 80’s, turning 86 next week, so there’s even more memories and sense of gratification to have made it this far, with my spouse of 63 years.
Together we love life as Courtney does and certainly feel no need to see Disneyland—again. We would like to return to Kathmandu where we met in 1960, and show its wonders to our four grandchildren.
Our main desire is having enough good health to travel around the world again, urging people to do more, because that tends to break down illusions of Otherness, the big barrier to gaining a spirit of common humanity.
Keep writing these gems Courtney: we count on your eloquent insights! DD
I'm 52. My two are 16 and nearly 21. My marriage to their dad ended when I was 40, so I got a lot of (unexpected) practice in remembering what it was to live and move and breathe again as myself and not just their mom 24/7. Honestly, I think it made me a much better mother. It's also true that when I was in the thick of 24/7 mothering-- managing feeding and bedtime and homework and feelings and squabbles-- I couldn't imagine ever getting back to any self that resembled my pre-kid self. And the reality is that I've never gotten back to her, but some of the freedom of movement and focus that she had has returned as they have become increasingly separate from me, only now it is informed by all the depth that they've required of me and IT'S BETTER. I never would have imagined, but it's so much better than being my pre-kid self. She had great fashion sense, was maybe a little more adventurous and less risk averse (her ass was glorious!), but I much prefer being myself now.