The Constant

This post first appeared here on 9/30/2012. 

I have tinkered with it. 

I try not to over think parenting.

If I let things start to percolate too much, then I am likely to become frozen in fear. I may not get out of bed that day. And then there would be no one to pour the milk, drive the car, or kiss the boo-boos.

So I try not to think too deeply about the future, hope, danger, disasters, disease, geopolitics, global climate change, and the trying to stay somewhere between helicopter parent and degenerate.

I just try to get through each day.

I make jokes on Facebook and Twitter about walking around all day with poop on my shirt, Legos falling out of my hair in the checkout line, and Naptime Cocktail Hour.

I lightly say, "Eh, I'm just winging this thing! Aren't we all?"

 But sometimes, sometimes the children do and say things that make my heart clutch and make a thousand thoughts rush in that keep my eyes wide open well into the night.

This is about just one such moment.

My sons, ages 5 and 3, are really into pretending. They put together elaborate stories with little figures and vehicles. They want to pretend to be something or someone else. They are firefighters, or police officers, or dinosaurs, or animals. They carry on for a long time.  I love pretending. Of course, I want to play. But here is the thing, my son won't let me.

"Oh," I say, “Can I be a police officer, too?”

"No, Mommy."

"How about a criminal?”

"No, thanks."

"The police dog?”

"No, Mommy, you can't be anything. You be the Mommy. Go sit over there and be Mommy."

After a while of this, I started to get slightly bummed that I couldn't play. And I got even more bummed when my sons started insisting that my husband could participate, but still not me.

"We are pirates. Daddy, you are in your castle, but we are coming."

I ask, "What can I be?"

"Um, you just go over there and be the Mommy."

One day, I finally admitted (yes, begrudgingly) that this was starting to bother me. Why can't I play, too? Why do I only get to be Mommy?

Then finally my husband, in a surprising bout of awareness, said something that made perfect sense.

He said, “Don’t you see? You are their Constant.”

Now, if you got that reference right away, "Congratulations! You’re a nerd!"

But if you were never obsessed with the TV show Lost, or you watched it and then went on with your life…like a normal person should, then here is a quick explanation or refresher.

On the show, there was a character named Desmond.  He was "unstuck in time" and sometimes ended up visiting another time in his life or another dimension (let’s not get into it right now, Losties). The people who had experience with this sort of thing had learned, the hard way, that it could really fry your brain. So they figured out it behooved your mental health to have an object or person that was your touchstone for any of the time periods you may find yourself in. This was your Constant. Wherever and whenever you find yourself, put yourself in the presence of your Constant so your brain doesn't melt. Desmond's Constant was the love of his life, Penny.

That sums up the origin of a Constant. (And one of the best hours of television e-ver.)

My husband made me realize I am the Constant for my sons.

I am the touchstone.

It isn't that they didn’t want me to play. It is that it unhinges their little brains to have me become anything else other than Mommy. It is okay for everyone else, even themselves, to dance the line between imagination and reality, but they can't have Mommy do that. They need Mommy always standing by. Real, present, and right over there.

At first I was flattered and moved by this, but later, as I let it sink in a little too deep, I started to panic.

Because being one's Constant, that is big.

I am an anchor to what is real. I am the one thing they count on to always be there. I am the tangible connection to world, time, and space.

Am I thinking too deep about this? Yes, maybe I am, but maybe I’m not.

I'm not certain, with my own befuddled mind and overall weirdness, I am the best option to hold onto as one's Constant. Am I constant enough?

But then again, I have to realize that I most certainly won't always be the Constant.

Over time this will change, in fact it already is. My oldest son has started school. His world is getting bigger and bigger with each passing day.  I may or may not be his touchstone anymore. In the blink of an eye, he will unhinge himself from me and this place.  He will be unstuck, and my other son will soon follow. They will have places to go.

And that is as it should be.

My job as the Constant is a fleeting moment in space and time.

And maybe soon, when they don’t need me to only be Mommy anymore, they will finally let me be the police dog.