Giants

I am planting daffodil bulbs around the tree in front of our stoop with my older neighbor when another neighbor comes up with her little boy. He’s eight and would very much like to help us dig in the dirt. His mother finally consents, and we begin to talk as he digs. “My boys are giants now,” I say. This is something I say a lot now when people ask about my kids. They are to me, on some level, giant versions of her little boy. Then I tell her that my “boys” are 25 and 20. That they are those odd creatures of the imagination, “adult children.” But aren’t we all? Do we ever stop being children to somebody? Adults to somebody else?

The woman appears to be a little younger than me—that means she has no discernible gray or wrinkles, but her personal style, skin, and hair say mid-forties. I know—how can you tell what forty looks like? But admit it, there are some signs. Maybe it’s just a look in the eyes. I tell you this because the woman says to me, “Wow, you don’t look old enough to have kids that age.” This is sort of meant as a compliment, but when people say it I always feel a little like a freak—did I have kids super young? No. The average age of mothers now is the age I was then: 27. Did I have a career first? No. I’m still patching it together. Did I upend her expectations of her fellow Gen Xers? Probably, yes. Did I upend mine? Probably also yes. I wonder how old this neighbor thinks I look, and what that says to her about where I should be in my life. Where should I be in my life?

I thank the neighbor and give her my line about “starting young.” If I am feeling really sassy, I will say I was a “child bride,” though I was actually 25 when I married. I am confused about how old to feel, about what the right age is, about what each age means. About whether it matters. Don’t say you’re as old as you feel because that means very little. Some days, I am right there with the eight-year-old boys. Other days, I feel closer to my eighty-year-old neighbor. Some days, old as dirt.

Age is just a number, a construct, people say. But it does mean something. My skin knows that. I too, Nora, feel bad about my neck. I am a part of a generation of people who came of age in the late 80s and early 90s, and many of us still feel a bit dazed and confused. All the sudden, we’re adult children with adult children. All the sudden we’re not old enough and too old, still digging in the dirt, hoping to see something grow, at least in ourselves.