Running with inevitable

Our Y, like many, has an open floor plan, so the sights and sounds of all the various fitness styles share space. Recently, as I awaited outside the room that would become my Pilates studio in five minutes, a raucous gaggle of children used it as a gymnasium. With fits of laughter, the kiddos were running, skipping, hopping on the same wood floor that would host my "mind/body" class at the top of the hour. Through the glass wall I could see a line of parents on a side bench watching their children and mostly reading their phones. I was once that bored parent, longing to do my own thing. And yet there I was, about to do my own thing and longing to be one of those bored parents.

This isn't my car radio, but if it was the presets
would be one public radio station, 
two classic rock stations, 
and three heavy metal stations.
I've heard Running with the Devil
more in the past six months than in
the previous 30 years.

Meanwhile, from the weightlifting room on the second level blasted Van Halen's "Running with the Devil," instantly taking me back to high school. 

I heard a theory that for parents, life is split into thirds: 1.) pre-children, 2.) children, and 3.) post-children. That moment, awaiting my class, it was a sensory mashup of all three stages. My ears registered Van Halen’s electric running riffs, my eyes focused on the children’s running, and my chest ached  for the transition running me over.

For approximately two minutes, I was suspended in a concurrent trifecta of mothering phases. My current position of freely choosing how to spend an hour because my kids are older. My previous stage of mind-numbing tedium to field their dreams (for which I feel nostalgia, rational or not). And my pre-kid high school stage attending rural keggers with watery beer, late 70s heavy metal, and its own rigid system of social stratification (for which I feel no nostalgia, totally rational).

Nostalgia is not my nature, usually. I’m pretty sure I have "reverse nostalgia" as I’ve heard it called. I miss what I am not going to do, and who I'm not going to meet. However, I admit to being plenty nostalgic in heading back to independent agent after almost two decades of direct motherhood.

Actually, I still kind of like Van Halen and I’ve been hearing a lot more of the likes lately. With 18-year-old daughter mostly gone, 16-year-old son dominates the presets on my car radio, which now consists of one public radio station, two classic rock stations, and three heavy metal stations. Every time we ride together I run three ways: I am transported back to those dreadful farm field keggers, I offer free driving advice, and I think about two years into the future when this kid will be gone too.

I am, however, learning how to quit running it forwards and backwards. I’m learning to turn up the volume and enjoy the music.