Dirt Roads

I bet you’ve heard all read at some point, “In vino veritas”.

Well, today let me introduce you to...

“On dirt roads... verbosity”.  The Latin translation escapes me, but please read on.

I’m not exactly sure what happens to teenage boys when they’re on dirt roads, really. It's quite a strange phenomena to watch unfold, most especially to a 40- something, city-ish kind of mama.

I’ve seen it my whole life though, with my older brother and my dad. It’s peculiar, quite frankly. All of a sudden they want to dress like trees, grasses, and sticks and sling thick, cake-like mud everywhere and on everything when they even smell a dirt road. They instantly mimic every animal sound that just might be lurking deep in the woods. And let’s not even mention the smells. Oh gosh, the smells. You don't want to know about the smells, if you don't already know.

But the thing I find mostly curious... is how talkative a boy gets on these red dirt roads. I bet if I counted, on a good day, I’d get a sum total of 5 sentences out of a certain teenager and 4 of them are likely to revolve around food and their times of arrival. My husband is much the same way, actually so I’m not too terribly surprised. I’m simply fascinated at the speed in which this transformation takes place.

Like a football player on game day after he’s secured his chin strap on his helmet and steps onto the field to fulfill all the plays he’s so carefully rehearsed from the whiteboard to chalked lines... so is the camouflage and specks of orange to a boy. No studying required.

Moments with varied conversations in full swing yet devoid of devices and screens are indeed a rare wonder, it would seem. But the past couple of days I learned all kinds of things like what his core memories are. “Inside Out” played twice on the DVD player on our drive up. Apparently it’s one of his favorite Disney movies, yet another fact I didn’t fully realize until the “dirt road chats.”

We talked about all of his “core” memories like the one time his daddy jumped into the freezing December creek water after he quickly tossed his long Johns & camouflage pants onto the ground because well... obviously. Joel had gotten a "big one" and it had fallen in the freezing waters too. We talked about how his daddy apparently nearly drowned him while kayaking, how he nearly killed his own grandpa while hunting, and how he nearly drowned in a pool in Curaçao (ok... I’m gonna pause this little flashback session because I’m gonna need y’all to understand that this is all from his 6 year old viewpoint, his 10 year old viewpoint, etc. (He was mostly safe, Karens).

So anyway, after what felt like nearly half an hour of hearing about how everyone else and their cousin were a part of these critical “core” memories, I couldn’t help at this point to ask where I stood in all this.

I was nearly bursting with anticipation to know all the amazing roles I played in his memories. I was absolutely dying to know!! Is it when I bought you the best birthday present ever, the silly inside jokes we share, staying up late to play board  games eating the best homemade/organic/Pinterest perfect snacks, my amazing, super fun well-planned trips and vacations... WHAT IS IT??

His answer stung just a bit. As teenagers' words often can.

“Well, you’re the one that’s there all those times that I was stuck in the hospital. I don’t really want to talk about it... but you’re there. Those are a lot of 'core memories.'"

And dang it, my Folgers that was smooth and silky and perfectly Vanilla biscotti all of a sudden felt like pure sandpaper down my throat.

I could have sat there... in that moment of pure defeat for a hot minute or... a month. But thank God, he turned a corner so sharply, he near about tossed me outside the net that’s barely keeping me in, in the first place. It was oddly the most perfect jolt I needed and I quickly and ever-so-wittingly replied, “Yeah. Hey that’s good. We don’t have to talk about any of that. Thank goodness you’ve still got that whole core memory of me giving away your pet bunny because your brother was utterly allergic to it.”

I mean... there is that right? We laughed and drove on.

Where do we fall in all of this, mamas? When we’re not really the fun one, the nice one, heck.. not even the one for anything... other than... you’re there.

YOU ARE THERE.

And we know... WE KNOW what that really means. All the behind the scenes. All the phone calls, appointments, crying at night after they’re tucked in bed praying you got one thing... JUST ONE THING RIGHT.

And you did. You got a whole lot of things right.

But tonight.... revel in the fact that you’re there.

Because these kiddos are packing away some serious core memories and you’re there, too mama.

You are always there....