No matter where we are. Navigating traffic and potholes? With her in the passenger seat, there will be a commentary on everything from why do goats look at their cutest when wearing coats to the tax policies of the various political parties, via a small sidestep into why avocado is delicious and ducks are actually really intelligent.
Quickly eating breakfast before an early Zoom meeting? Time for her to start talking about the power grid struggles in South Africa, as well as how she wishes she could re-read Harry Potter for the first time and maybe also a mention or two of goats or ducks ....
You get the point. Living with my 15-year-old is like having Clarissa Dalloway living with us, only wearing jeans and hoodies not a silver-green evening dress. While at times this can feel like living trapped in someone’s monologue featuring more ducks and goats than you might think are needed, I am learning to lean in, and enjoy the moment. To let the monologues wash over me as it were, for all too soon, these moments will only be memories. They are simply buds on the tree of my daughter’s life, and as she is growing and blooming into the incredible young woman she is becoming, they are becoming something to be treasured as the last remnants of her childhood.
She’s not the only talkative member of our family. Her older brother, who turned 18 this year, can match her word for word, although he might prefer his stream of consciousness style to be described as like that of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
There are fewer baby goats and ducks in his conversations, but plenty of politics, history, classics, Star Wars and Marvel. Go back 15 years and it was Thomas the Tank Engine, tigers and ships. The topics have changed over time, (although I can’t actually remember a time without Star Wars now I think about it), but the stream of consciousness hasn’t.
Recently, as he prepares for life beyond school with uni on his mind, he has been slowly but steadily emptying his room of some of the detritus of his younger years. Pokémon cards, once treasured and carefully stored, have now been handed down to his younger brother, and years of revision notes and old workbooks are turning up in our recycling bin.
One item caught my eye last week. A paper letter E, with names signed on it. A relic from his leaver’s dinner at the end of his primary years, where the leaving pupils made a farewell sign with those letters, before signing them and giving them out to each other as they left. It’s sat on a shelf in his room for the past five years, and now, as he weeds out those buds of his early life, it has been relegated to the burn pile by our fire.
I was a little taken aback to see it there, given my son’s reputation as a pack rat over the years, but even pack rats eventually weed through their stuff I suppose. And that’s what he is doing right now, he is pruning his room, his belongings, and recognising that pieces of paper aren’t the buds on the tree of his life, but the memories are. His friendships with those primary school friends still exist, on Insta, FB or wherever the cool kids hang out now so it’s just the paper he is throwing away, not the people or the memories themselves.
Part of me is tempted to grab that letter E and stick it on the fridge, because, as all three children grow, my fridge is getting emptier (on the outside) too. There are fewer crayon drawings now, less school-created artwork, and soon, with the youngest of them about to start his final year of primary school, there will be none. Part of me wants to cling on to these buds of their lives, and not let go. I want to hit that pause button, and stop them growing so fast.
But then, I would miss out on seeing them blossom. So instead, I shall enjoy each moment as it happens. Whether it’s baby goats or politics doesn’t matter, because all too soon my house will be a lot quieter. The good news is, the 12-year-old is as good at stream of consciousness as his siblings, so I suspect there will be plenty of Pokémon character discussions and ostrich facts to fill the silence.
