Friday my daughter, granddaughter and I went to the train museum. My granddaughter loves trains, to understate her feelings. We were walking through one of the trains, and she sat down on a seat, and the docent was talking to her, and when I tried to get her to move on I realized she thought the train was really going to move, and we were making a trip. She was upset, and keep looking for the train that would take us somewhere. "Not going" she would say, as we approached each huge train engine. I felt terrible. She's only 2 1/2, and I'd taken her previously on a train trip to see my friend. She loved it, and I had inadvertently built up her expectations. We had a great time with the toy trains, and added some trains to her Thomas Engine collection, but I wished we could have had a train ride. I hate to be the one to disappoint her.
I was feeling about the same age and frame of mind as my granddaughter over my 65th birthday. I had hoped my husband would surprise me by doing something special, but he surprised me by not doing anything. It was a thrill to have my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter fly in for the cabin and our birthdays. And the tea was great on my birthday, but somehow, I was expecting something else. I had to be on the phone a dozen times to change the dinner reservation. I got frazzled. I didn't fully appreciate what I did have, which is embarassing to me and goes to show how much my practice needs refining. Turning 65 was harder than I thought: the biopsies, the connection with my Dad, who died two months after he turned 65, the fact that one of our kids couldn't be here, gloomy weather. Somehow the mix exceeded my capabilities, and my fantasy outstripped reality.
It's interesting to know that I can be a two year old in many ways, including that of hoping, wishing, dreaming of some perfect world in which the train begins to move, farmlands race by outside my window, and our destination is Paris or Hawaii.
No comments:
Post a Comment