Change

On one of the trails I hike on frequently, I have a tree that I start watching closely at the end of June. It's not the tree that I'm interested in, although I like trees; it's that I'm watching to see when the first sad underwing moth will appear.  For the last two years, I've observed these moths on that tree around the first of July. This year was no exception- my first sad underwing moth sighting was on June 30.

These moths aren't rare, or endangered; in fact, they're quite common on this trail if you know when and where to look- but for me they mark the transition between early summer and late summer. Early summer means the lazy days of vacation, sleeping in, cookouts, pool parties, 4th of July fireworks.  The appearance of the sad underwing moth is, for me, a first harbinger of school supplies in big bins, e-mails from the school, marching band camp, of summer melting into early fall, the first whisper of Halloween. Change is coming, their appearance says. 

Sometimes there is a clear line between what was and what is- graduation, a new job, a wedding, a birth.  When I went into active labor with my oldest, somewhere between yelling at the Dad of No that running stop signs was perfectly fine, just get this car to the hospital NOW! was this thought: in just a few hours my life will be different forever.  More often, though, change sneaks up on you and one day you realize, stuff changed. How did that happen?

Especially at the beginning of each school year, I become more aware of how my own offspring are changing. For several Augusts in a row, I'd head straight to the bins of crayons and markers on sale and stock up because I knew they'd be needed.  Then one year as I reached for the crayons, the thought popped into my head: Why are you buying those? You still have boxes from last year!   Instead of needing crayons and markers and construction paper in strange sizes I was buying graphing calculators and spiral bound notebooks and posterboard.  The year came when the postcard from the elementary school informing us about "meet the teacher" didn't come, and then I looked up and realized that my youngest towered over me by several inches, and I realized that somewhere in there both kids had transitioned from childhood to adolescence, and it was bittersweet. 

Recently, I noticed that the Teenager had started telling, as opposed to asking, us where she was going and what she was doing.  Mom, she'd say, I'm going to Starbucks to work on applications with a friend. I'm going bowling. I signed up for an early Saturday shift at work. I'll be back later, I'll get something for dinner while I'm out. She is standing at the threshold of early adulthood, and it is bittersweet. 

When I see young mothers with babies or toddlers, I have to resist the urge to tell them, as older women have told young mothers for generations, it goes by too fast.  When I heard it, as a new mother, I was exhausted and in serious doubt about my own mothering skills, and it was inconceivable to me that it would go by as fast as I now realize it did.  It never occurs to you when you struggle to put the infant car seat in the car that one day you'll be taking it out, that one day the kids will fight over who gets the front seat, and then they'll move to the driver's seat, and that you'll be asking yourself, how did that happen so fast?

Change is ever flowing- mostly so slowly we don't see it coming until it's already passed us by-in the inches gained at the well-child checkup, the lost baby teeth, the changing interests. It's in the once-treasured but now outgrown princess dress-up clothes being placed in the Goodwill basket to make room for softball or soccer or Girl Scout uniforms, which in turn will make way for a marching band or a cheerleading or a JROTC uniform , and then a cap and gown.  It is in the hard-won trophies that now sport a layer of dust, a stuffed animal at the back of a closet, a storybook placed in the library donation pile.

Because we've lived in the same house since before both kids were born, sometimes I come across items in boxes, relics from the early years.  A few months ago I found a diaper bag in a storage chest.  It even still had a couple of diapers in it.  I had likely put it aside one day because I hadn't needed it, probably on a day I was feeling confident about potty training progress, and I had never picked it back up.  Change had happened, and I'm sure I had not even given it a second thought.

The sad underwing moths are all around us, subtle signs of the ever occurring change that cannot be stopped, change that often goes unremarked upon until a milestone year is reached, like the senior year of high school, when we look up from the routine and say to ourselves "How did that happen?". 

And it is bittersweet.