What Will 2017 Bring Us?

It’s almost 2017, and part of me is broken. I look at life and prejudice and hate and rape culture and Aleppo and feel sadness that even the best of hugs and cheesiest of nachos can’t fully defrost.

I want to stop watching the news but it’s everywhere.

There’s hate on Twitter and Facebook and even on the TV when all I really want to find is the original Rudolph movie, complete with Yukon Cornelius and the Abominable Snowman.

There are days when I worry about being human, and wonder what the parts of us made from more are thinking, except that they’re fused with our messiest us-ness.

I remember that we’re a bowl of hope and despair and stardust and angst and manic remote-control-button-pushers, searching for the Rudolph movie.

But, there’s also the unexpected. Like the day that my not-so-little-little-boy’s school saw the police brigade protect Santa’s visit.

Like the moment driving to a make-up swim lesson.

“Mommy, I should wait to find a wife until I’m 30, right?”

“Well, yes, ideally, but sometimes finding-a-partner-love happens sooner or later, and sometimes we think we’ve found it but we were wrong.”

“But how will I know if she picked me?”

“Oh buddy, it’s not about her picking you. It’s about you picking each other by accident and having fun while eating nachos or burgers and all of a sudden, you’ve done that like a bunch of times, and you realize you would rather eat burgers or nachos with that person more than anybody else.”

“I like eating nachos and burgers with you,” he says.

And I hid my tears, because although he’s seven now, he’s also still more mine than the future’s, although the future sits on my nightstand.

The future sits there even now, sometimes in his Thinker-pose, and at others, running gleefully from my water bottle to the books stacked up.

Sometimes, he laughs at me and jumps beneath the bed to remind me of childhood things. Mostly, though, the future waits for us on my night stand and we high-five in the night when my son comes to get me.

That’s another milestone averted for sure.

Late at night, I ask the future what will come to pass this year, in 2017, but he only provides the most obvious of observations.

Drivel such as “It won’t be this year, but soon, your little boy will be taller than you are.”

I gather Tucker to me, and realize he’s up to my collarbone now, and somehow, I don’t cry.

I remember the Christmas when he was this big, and I thank the future for all of our pasts and our nows, because I know that Future gets a bum rap at times, when we forget. I vow to not forget.

Other drivel reminds us that we’re living in the moments as the world burns in places. That while images of Aleppo are in my mind, I continue to tuck my son into bed.

That he continues to believe in Santa. Oh friends, he TOTALLY believes and I live that. 

That a mom from school today told me that Tucker reminds her of a boy from the 50’s, so sweet and pure.

I didn’t tell her that when he was three, we were sure Tucker had autism. I didn’t tell her that he’s naive because of neurological things, but maybe, I’ll send this to her and share.

It’s almost 2017, and I’m not yet done with 2016.

There are some moments to record, some photos to take, art projects to draw, and discussions to have, like me answering the whole “So, when a husband pollinates a wife…” (HELP APPRECIATED HERE). 

2017 will be filled with grief and despair, and we know this. It will also be filled with milestones, light, magic and little kid’s voices telling us that they need us at 3am. The 3am part is both, friends. It’s both light and memories and also weariness and unrest. Like life, and like 2017. Like all of the years, gifted to us.

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This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. This week’s sentence is “It’s almost 2017, and…”