When We Became Ordinary

Once upon a time two very smart, and very dumb, young people met and fell in love. The love happened slowly and yet all-at-once, over clandestine witticisms sent in lieu of taking notes. In the same class. Three screens apart. It grew over later-night ice cream, dished out after dates, as they "pursued other interests" while a perfect fit sat across the futon.

Like most young and smart/dumb people, they hardly ever thought of themselves as ordinary.

Quirky? Yes. Flippant? Definitely. Blessed? Sure thing! ...And, hey, don't forget lucky!

Eventually, the very smart/ dumb young people saw just enough to know they should be married and always together. For years of email and lots of bowls of ice cream.

And so things went as things will go, while the smart/ dumb young people aged (only slightly), and gained (a few worldly things plus a bit around the middle), secured interesting jobs and bought their first home.

They acknowledged to each other that they had a very fun life. They planned overseas vacations in their emails. And they bought very expensive ice cream.

They also dreamed daydreams and grew discontent and sought new jobs and tried new things -- and then they became parents.

And, still, they were not ordinary.

Two very smart/slightly less dumb young people + 1 first-born child = nothing so very commonplace (to one another, anyway).

Everything, in fact, was original. All new. Premiering, every night.

Even the horrible parts were washed in glory, and the silky-fine, orange-gold hairs that graced that perfect first baby head seemed like God's special sign, a blazing torch that shed light on how very special and unique they must all be... this never-before-made family of three.

But something shifted along the way, as things went how things are wont to go.

The fairly smart/less dumb young people grew in the ways of their new tribe, called Parents. They gave up the "no TV" rule but held firm on "no McDonald's." (Mostly.) They learned about "good enough" and "getting through the day." They occasionally startled upon sight of the small and petty and lazy in themselves, and sometimes they wanted to shoo these lesser things away. Other times, they greeted the things with a wordless handshake.

Soon enough, they moved to Texas. Where a lot of good and sacred and a lot of hard and heartbreaking things happened. Sometimes all at once.

And so for years the family grew and laughed and cried and wondered about its place and, ultimately, sought for itself one last missing piece.

Eventually, they got it. Another baby -- the boy who lived -- arrived and he also bore the torch of special in his fiery fine locks. This time, with curls.

But no story ends at a beginning, and the family of three-who-became-four were far from over once their forth arrived. They had years of figuring-it-out ahead. And more than a few stops at McDonald's.

Flirty emails got scarce and ice cream went generic. Just like the shampoo, the cleaning products, and the diapers that used to be Huggies. Grocery lists got longer, time got shorter, and someone started shorting bedtime stories.

All those little changes, amassing in one very big wave, surged the story forward until one day, the not-so-young/ often absent-minded/ never-really-dumb Mom came to email the slightly-more-aged/ definitely-more-subdued/ and-clearly-never-dumb Dad to say, "I must clean this office! When did I become such a pig?"

And, typing, she suddenly knew.

An answer appeared to her fleeting, silly question. It was, in fact, quite real, and her mind reeled with its own reply. It happened when she became ordinary.

Before, she was a girl with passions. Abilities. Focus. Full of Light and Effervescence and Boundless Energy. While her messes and her projects could pile high, she could never survive disorder for very long. Nope. Because her Type could not allow it.

Special people, you may know, set special expectations for themselves. They aim high.


And that is how they come to have so far to fall.

This particular mom and this particular dad were forced to face that their unvarnished life looked a lot like anyone else's -- full of messes and always listing to one side. With detours and sidetracks and no straight climb to the pinnacle of anything. Unable to deny the exits they had taken on the way to SPECIAL and SUCCESSFUL and BEST SELVES EVER, they reached the only, inevitable conclusion. You can't be important to a lot of people at once, not when something important is happening at home. You can't even *always* be important yourself. No human can have it all or do it all. Just not possible. But, to a very few people, for a short while, you can be an entire world.

Dear Miles and Owen: I am humbled and privileged to have become ordinary for you. To give you an ordinary, good life. You are worthy young men, worth any sacrifice we have so far made or will ever be called to make, to keep our family woven tightly together. You have been worth facing the worst in myself; worth digging deep for the best. You are valuable and precious and so, so loved. You are my messy middle. You make me special. --Mom