Janelle Evans

You probably know the saying “The mind may be willing but the body isn’t.” There are just some things we cannot do. For example, I can’t high jump. My vertical abilities are really quite sad—even when I was young. Okay, so maybe that one is not such a big deal, but I also don’t like the sight of cuts and blood. And when you have a crazy ten-year-old boy like mine, my struggle with the sight of blood now becomes a big problem.

This week he came running into the house screaming in pain. “My hand, my hand,” he wailed, clutching his palm.

I shore up my head with one of those mental you-can-do-this peps talks and pull his fingers away to see the damage. At first all I see is blood, so much of it I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. I’m doing my best to stop my hands from shaking as I wipe a rag across the skin. He’s freaked out enough as it is. Then he pulls back his thumb and exposes a puncher wound in the valley between the thumb and pointer finger. Oh, good grief, it’s deep. I’m sucking air, trying not to pass out as I keep inspecting and wiping to make sure the wound gets clean.

“Bring me the super glue,” I say to my oldest, a sweaty, clamminess coming over me. I have to make my son get down on his knees with me as I glue the cut closed, darkness threatening to take me at any moment.

My husband jumps in to finish bandaging the wound, because I end up on the floor doing all I can not to lose consciousness. Jeez, I hate being such a wimp, but when it comes to blood, my body doesn’t care—a wimp I will be.

I’ve always been an outgoing person. I love to be involved—so much so I often tend to stretch myself thin with people and projects. My oldest son is nothing like this. A true introvert, he prefers to stay home than go out with friends. To say this drives me crazy would be an understatement. I keep telling him you only get one shot at this high school experience—soak up all you can. He smiles and nods than goes right back into that proverbial shell of his.

This week there was a dance after the football game, so of course I hounded him about attending. The after game dances were some of my favorite high school memories. “You’re a junior,” I said, “you need to get out there. You’re high school experience is already halfway over—”

“Mom.” He put up his hand, his tone begging me to stop. “I’m sorry I didn’t come out just like you, but I don’t come with an upgrade.”

His words silenced me and I’ve been reflecting on them ever since. I had never considered myself to be one of those parents who lived vicariously through their children—I just wanted them to be happy. Yet, I now realize I’ve been pushing my version of happiness on them. Maybe the things that I enjoy, they never will. Does that mean they will never be happy? Of course the answer is no, but I’m not sure where to go from here. How do I guide this teenager who has nothing in common with me other than the misfortune of having this outspoken person as their mother?

I’ve watched a ton of football games over the years, but for the first time, I witnessed one of my own children actually carry the ball for a touchdown. I just gotta say, “Holy cow—what a nerve wracking five-seconds that was.” It felt more like five minutes of torture to my body. He was clear back around the five yard line when the punted ball landed in his hands, so he had a very long run ahead of him to get it into the end zone. I’m pretty sure my heart stayed lodged in my throat the entire distance, yet I still managed to scream, “Go, go, go.” What made it even funnier—I had been asked to take care of the down marker as part of the chain help for the game. I don’t even know when I started running, but I was about halfway down the field with the down marker still in my hand when he scored.  Which is a big no, no, since I’m supposed to keep track of where the line of scrimmage is, in case there’s a penalty that gets the ball called back. Good thing we’re talking ten-year-olds and not high school football, because the referee didn’t chew me out when I walked over to place the marker for the extra point.

“Well,” he said with a wink, “I think I’ve figured out which one of them is yours.”

I burst out laughing, having made a spectacle of myself again. Good thing I do it so often it no longer bothers me.

I spend a lot of time driving my involved kids from one destination to another. I love music, so the radio is always playing in the background no matter what vehicle I’m in. This week, one of the radio personalities talked about a new psychological finding for those who talk to themselves. My oldest son, who at the time was with me in the car, gave me one of those and-that-would-be-you gloating looks of his.

Sadly, he is not wrong. My kids walk in on me talking to myself all the time. I can’t seem to help myself. Most of the time, I don’t even realize I’m doing it—though it seems to be my preferred method for working out problems, big or small. I even do it when writing, which has been known to wake up my husband in the wee hours of the morning while I’m working. Whoops. Sorry, honey. I love you. 🙂

Then the radio announcer says the study shows people who talk to themselves are not crazy after all, but cognitive geniuses.

I punch my son in the shoulder. “See…this is why you should always listen to your mother.”

“I kind of have to,” he said, rubbing his arm, “you’re always talking.”

Okay, I guess my son deserves a nod for his perfectly timed burn, but I still found it exciting to be called a cognitive genius—if even for just a moment. In reality, I’m probably the exception to the “self-talker” study, since I’m the queen of misplacing things.

As a general rule, I’m not the funniest person in my house. The awesome one-liners that have everyone doubled over in laughter around here often belong to my oldest son and husband, but that in-the-moment quick wit is a talent I just don’t have. For me, I need time and lots of a delete button to come up with killer zingers for my characters. So, I’m pretty excited this week’s funny moment came from me.

I had just sat down on the couch after a long day of writing, to rest my head before I stood back up to start dinner. I was mindlessly flipping through foreign film options on Netflix when my youngest son came hopping into the room. In his sock covered feet, He jumped from beside a potted plant to the hearthstone, then to the rug in the middle of the room. He gave a few more hops on the rug, only to have his sock covered feet slide out from underneath him. Falling to his butt, one of his feet struck the underside edge of the couch I sat on.

“What were you doing?” I slid off the couch to where he sat holding his foot, examining the damage.

“I was trying to be a spy,” he said between gulps of breath, trying not to cry.

The comment was so unexpected, yet the perfect one-liner came to me as I peeled back his sock. “Well, Agent Pants,” I said, proud I managed to even throw in the nickname that embarrassed him the most, “I would say you failed.”

His near-tears turned into laughter, and we both had a good chuckle there on the floor. Oh yeah, I nailed it.