Kickstand

Jul 14

Written By Elle DoubleUPepper

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.

A circle is round, it has no end.
That's how long, I will be your friend.

A fire burns bright, it warms the heart.
We've been friends, from the very start.

You have one hand, I have the other.
Put them together, we have each other.

Silver is precious, gold is too.
I am precious, and so are you.

You help me and I'll help you
and together we will see it through.

The sky is blue. The Earth is green
I can help to keep it clean

Across the land, Across the sea
Friends forever we will always be

— Make New Friends : Girl Scout Motto

It’s fully July now.

Summer is under way.

Thankfully my keratin is holding up and keeping up.

We had Fourth of July with all it’s bbqs, pool parties and spiked seltzers throughout the long weekend but the noise that was coming and filling our night skies had less to do with the fireworks and more to do with us questioning what it really means to be independent when our independence is being questioned.

Our annual reds, whites and blues didn’t bleed purple again.

Not even lavender…

Our nation still remains colorblind.

Another tragedy way too terrible to fathom.

Holding and kissing our children even tighter— again. As if we ever stopped… We might be afraid we could suffocate them with our love, but fuck that! The current events is playing games with our emotions and our oxygen levels enough we can’t catch our breath.

I’m not escaping reality or mishandling the plot twists I’m just trying to follow Emily in Paris at night and wait by the mailbox everyday for my next letter from my older son and the big yellow bus every afternoon for my little one.

In the middle I’m trying to remember to keep up my mental health membership this summer and do what is good for my soul.

Even if it’s for 30 minutes.

Finding the joy in what is still happy if it’s even possible it makes me appreciate even more about what’s not, this unbelievable sadness of a different kind of homesick feeling across the miles.

I can’t change what keeps happening— it’s out of control, but trying to find the balance between the extremes is. Letting the four letter word of LOVE cancel out the four letter word of HATE or worse FEAR — and always, always keep a space and place for the iconic four letter word FUCK! That word can change the meaning of everything.

Gotta love FUCK. So little and so mighty.

My little one got a new bike for his birthday last month. He’s so excited to learn how to ride it. It’s really a big boy bike. This bike comes with training wheels, reflectors and hand brakes, but ironically the one thing that is missing is the kickstand. How can he expect to stand up his bike once I remove the support he needed to learn to ride it independently…

I think of a kickstand as an integral part of the bicycle.

It’s the smallest piece which holds up something larger.

Metaphorically I think of the support you need with the support you lose might not be able to withstand the weight of it all if the smallest piece is missing.

That’s the purpose of the kickstand.

Our children are our smallest piece of our world and yet they hold up the most weight in our society. It’s because of them we stand up and yet they are missing from our conversations lately…

This week following all the emotions and commotions I would have to patiently wait for the best conversation of them all. My first phone call from our son who is away this summer at sleep away camp.

15 minutes to jam in an infinite amount of I love yous between an infinite amount of questions and trying not to cry or worse hear his voice drop.

I know the photographs I see are worth a 1000 words and speak without any words at all, but the infinite sounds of your child’s voice speak for itself.

Mommies know their child’s voice. Even in the middle of a chaotic play space with 1000 children you can pick out the way that one “mommy” travels through the universe and know they are asking for you.

Mommies know.

Intuition mixed with emotions.

We heard their heartbeat and felt them from the inside out first.

His first phone call would come after the fireworks and before I was going to meet the mommies attached to his new summer friendships.

The middle of that week being the part I anticipated the most.

To hear his voice.

I had all these emotions for both evenings.

We go into things with a mixture of security, anticipation and absolute unknown. If I had to figure that’s Mommyhood— in a nutshell but it’s fucking more than a nutshell. I know.

Mommyhood : the mixture of knowing there will be the people there to support you at your best and hopefully pick you up at your worst. And there will be plenty of people who won’t do either. They don’t belong in your circle or your ‘hood. The wonder that comes from meeting a complete stranger for the first time and falling head over heels in love with them instantly and the unknown of any of it— no matter how many times you become a mommy to someone new it’s always something new. That’s the love, science and magic.

I heard his voice as it as if I had never heard it before. I listened to the things he said and didn’t say. I swallowed back all my tears of joy and ache. For missing him but the excitement of knowing he’s where he should be. I think I had determined to give my boys wings early on in their lives. But it’s still hard knowing with those wings means you must let them fall sometimes even when they are learning to fly.

I keep telling myself those same wings I gave to my sons— I should probably get a pair for myself.

It’s a funny thing about wings they are like kickstands. You don’t realize when they are going to be put to use. And you aren’t just going to need them to guide you but support you from falling down.

The night after our amazing phone call — it still took me hours to stop crying. Missing someone you love so much it’s like a piece of you is missing. — I let my lashes dry over night and by the next evening I added a fresh coat of mascara, curled my hair, glossed my lips, sweetened my skin, and put on my best Emily in Paris inspired summer ruffled dress to dine Al fresco with a handful of mommies attached to the boys my son was simultaneously befriending this summer. Some I knew well, some I knew of and some I was about to meet for the first time.

Security.

Anticipation.

Absolute unknown.

The three elements of Mommyhood were there as I rode away in the car for the evening, but when we arrived at the restaurant and the seating arrangements did not fit the uneven numbers of us from our security —something was missing— where was my kickstand? It was missing. The smallest piece to hold the weight of it all… A seat near my friends.

I took a deep breath and realized that’s the motto of going into something new and I did what I was supposed to do this summer at sleep away camp or dinner that night and made the same new friends my son was.

While my security of a kickstand was somewhere else and I realized it I used my wings I didn’t have to worry about falling down because I was flying.

These new friends were awesome. Some of them might even make it to my blue card of friendships. You know the ones you put on your in case of emergency or the break glass in case of emergency kind of girl. Who you might have just met for the first time, but were meant to be friends with your whole life.

And then there were some who still protect themselves behind shatter-proof glass or plexiglass and you can’t break their shell. Just yet—

I get it. I used to be that girl, too.

Until I realized it is way more fun to let people into your circle and your ‘hood who already captured your heart.

As the composite of our sons was passed around, like I was pledging the most exclusive sorority, I was excited to see that my son has those same three elements with him this summer.

Security.

Anticipation.

Absolute unknown.

Cue the Girl Scout motto— Make New Friends: