Just The Right Speed

It is as vivid as ever: walking down O Street in Washington DC with my first born baby.  She was probably about six months old and it was a beautiful fall day. I was hot from the long walk with the stroller and had paused for a moment to gear up to carry my daughter, her carseat, the stroller, some groceries and myself up three flights of steep stairs.  I wouldn’t say I was happy or sad; but tiredness was a given. A soft and generous man, probably about twice my age, strolled by with his bouncy five year old granddaughter. He stopped at the foot of my stairs, gazing adoringly at my daughter.

“It goes by so fast,” he said, looking me in the eyes.  “Enjoy it while you can.”

I got hotter.  This phrase, so frequently doled out to new parents, had begun to nearly make my blood boil.  

“So I have heard,” I retorted and went on with the work directly in front of me but now with slightly less energy and a nagging question, “am I not enjoying this ENOUGH?”

Now this daughter is seven and I have two more, five and three and this statement has nagged me through it all.  I have rolled this statement around in my head, felt agitated by it numerous times, wondered why it agitates me so, and discussed it undoubtedly at nauseum with my husband and friend.  

A response arrived completely out of the blue the other evening as I lay in the darkness just before sleep, “we are all growing and changing at just the right speed.”  I felt so delighted as I basked in the warmth of this perspective shift and I imagined all of my children, “growing at just the right speed.”  

I saw my three year old cuddling into the crook of my neck alongside having hot-blooded tantrums; 

my five year old learning to blow bubbles with her gum alongside testing the waters of the difference between joking and lying; 

my seven year old still needing hugs while simultaneously pushing me aside in front of peers.

There are such joys and challenges at every stage that it would be quite miserable to stay in any one stage forever. The change might be hard, but it is what makes us human and the growth is a strong symbol of our aliveness.

So, to all of the people who ever said to me, “it goes by so fast,” I thank you because you have led me to this new perspective of, “right on time.”  And I vow on my knees that the only thing I will say to new parents is this, “it is all happening at just the right speed.”