I am seriously contemplating rewinding time to when I was a five year old dancing to my big sisters ABBA records and admiring her posters of the Swedish fab four with their sleek (and bizarre) outfits and mysterious Nordic smiles.
Partly because the seventies seemed so fun when seen from the point of view of a child – all big hair, crazy clothes and upbeat music, and partly because being a child, even with all the angst of growing up it was WAY more fun than being an adult is.
I want someone else to do all the driving around – the soccer runs covering 300ks in a weekend, late night waits for party pick-ups and trying to squash three camp chairs, six kids, two eskies, a fortnight’s groceries, two boxes of stuff for St Vinnies AND a zillion late DVD’s for the video shop into one station wagon.
Mary Poppin’s magic bag has NOTHING on my Magna, and if you don’t believe me just watch when the kids (under pain of losing Playstation privileges) empty the car of rubbish after only a weeks driving. Not to mention the amount of stuff I manage to squash in for camping holidays or long road trips to Dubbo.
Yep, once again I am over being the one in charge, I want to have someone else do the thinking for me, the planning and organising, the bill paying, food finding and clothes sorting. Not that I didn’t have endless chores when I was a kid, and my kids will tell you that Cinderella has nothing on them when it comes to being worked to death by an evil (not-step) mother.
It’s the stress of trying to keep all the balls in the air while you juggle a household that has my voice getting shriller by the day and my bushy hair standing on end. And lets not even start on the wrinkles and varicose veins. ARRRGGHH.
So what do old girls who need to regress to the heady days of youth and fun do? They dance to ABBA. They sing to ABBA, and they laugh together about the days of ABBA, the Bay City Rollers, a more virginal Madonna and George Michael before we knew he was gay.
I can’t think of anything lately that has made me laugh and relax more than sharing the experience of watching Mamma Mia with girlfriends and a packed cinema of cackling women aged 8-80.
And knowing that my only daughter, who was with me, was turning 16 the next day was making me even more emotional than usual – happy and sad at the same time like every other mother and father out there.
So proud that together we have made it this far – from tiny baby curled in my tummy, then cradled into my thrilled and terrified arms to tall young woman with a wonderful sense of humour, big heart and crazy smile.
Is she really ours? How much longer do we get to “keep” this fabulous being with a mind of her own and still innocent twinkle in her eye?
How long till her experiences of the world start to teach her lessons we wish she didn’t have to learn for herself? How long till we have to let her hand go and trust that her wings can support her without anything but our love and attempts at parenting to support her into a future that is completely her own?
Yep, you guessed it, I am getting just a tad emotional while I am writing this. My own mother still means the world to me even though she is half a state away and unable to be a part of my daily life in a physical way. I still remember the feeling of moving away from home, the excitement and fears – I remember ringing her and talking for hours about my day and now I understand her patience in listening to me, for underneath it must have been the desire to still hold on to her little girl (one of four little girls and one son) and keep her safe.
I know I haven’t been the parent I wanted to be, and I know my mother wasn’t either, because none of us are saints, just ordinary people with normal highs and lows and fears and doubts, tears and joys. But I know that despite the copious use of a wooden spoon and fly swat on my backside my mother loved me and was doing the best she knew, and that my daughter who puts up with my sometimes scary ranting and raving and multiple lectures also knows I love her beyond any words in the world.
Sitting in that movie theatre and watching a scene where Meryl Streep sings of watching her daughter going to school for the first time and now preparing to marry, with my own daughter moving into real womanhood and a world of her own adventures was without a doubt a tear jerker, but something I will always cherish.
The movie among many things is the story about exploring our pasts and new beginnings, something we can all do no matter how old we are. And I know that at 39 years old I still have a lot more adventures ahead of me too that will be of my own making, I don’t need to leave all the excitement to my children. But boy, I wish my tired body had their get up and go to help me pursue my own dreams.
Mamma mia….here we go again…why why can’t I be YOUNG again??