From baby to baby, a senior representitive

After over thirty years of writing articles, op-eds and newspaper columns I began to wonder what kind of non-fiction writer I really am. Who am I writing for, who do I represent?

My latest ENOUGH SAID rant column had me defending my job, my fellow workers and just about everybody in service industries so I wondered how else have I defined myself over the years.

Early on I wrote about being a stay at home mother of two daughters. I touted the advantages of being home with my children as opposed to rushed mornings and late evenings of family time. Was it better for them? Doesn’t matter, because as a mother in her mid and late thirties, who longed for children like loneliness longs for love, it was better for me. Daycare or in home care, kids do just fine as long as they are wanted and loved for who they are.

Once our girls entered school fulltime, and I started punching a time clock again, I began to write about the wonderful chaos that adolescence, working parents and a four foot pile of laundry on the basement floor brings.

On one particular January day I was so tired of looking at the mound of cloths on the basement floor that I attacked it like a hungry crow on roadkill. After a full day of washing and folding I made it to the summer season’s bathing suits at the bottom. Under that heap lay a paper-thin dead frog flattened like flower petals pressed between the pages in a book.

As my girls got older my writing took a turn to teenager angst and how fast their childhood sped by. From trikes to cars and college, life picked up a kind of warp-speed momentum that can only be described as blur. It seemed as if one day I was standing at the end of our driveway waiting for the school bus for our oldest’s first day of kindergarten, and the next we were driving her three and half hours north to college in Vermont.  

And then, our youngest was off to a University in Rhode Island and there we were, two birds rearranging our nest for the next season. Sure the kids boomeranged back, moved out, got married, moved back again, bought houses, one had a baby, and the other is due in May. And, here I am today, a senior representative, writing about life from baby to baby.

When I think about all the years, and how our family has changed, I am so thankful I have chronicled it. Being able to share it, per publication, is a privildge. I’ve written about the new members who marry-in, those who opt out by choice, and the heartbreaking circumstances of those removed by fate, old age and senseless tragedy. I’ve written about being a daughter, a mother, granddaughter and grandmother, a wife and a friend. Stupid, smart, addlebrained and lame brained I’ve written it all. I’ve thought about, researched, considered and started projects so varied that only the confines of white space and word count could sort and confine them.

So what’s next?

New baby, retirement, old age? Damned if I know. Have to turn tomorrow’s page, tomorrow.

What’s new with you?