Good Morning, Boomers,
I love being a grandmother in my 60’s. I’m headed to Las Vegas tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to take care of my 2 grandsons and attend the 1st birthday of my third grandson. My daughter in law will be away attending a college reunion of friends from her Tulane days. My son, Jonathan, and I will take care of the kids. This is the best part of being 60.
Text message last night from my daughter in law, Carli: “I know you’ll be so excited to know I got tickets to see the Elmo show at the Thomas and Mack Center.” Carli knows I won’t be excited. She was laughing at me when she sent it. I went into a deep depression when I read it just before teaching my 4 pm yoga class at UCLA. Way to mentally prepare myself for a positive yoga practice.
I’ve done lots of things as a grandmother, some good and some not so good. The bad things are related to losing my temper when my grandsons begin to play with food and I get the stern witch voice going so I scare the holly crap out of them. But I do love to hunt for books at Barnes and Noble with my oldest grandson, 4 year old Jordan, and we do like to play in the part and swim together and those are part of the great fun of hanging out with the boys.
But Elmo!!!!! I hate Elmo! I don’t like the way he looks or talks or moves. I don’t like anything about Elmo. Both my grandsons love Elmo and so I have to look interested in their fascination with the creep. Thank God Jordan is on his way of love with the guy, but Luc is right on track developing an addiction to him or it.
I can endure the birthday parties this weekend, especially Greyson’s 1st birthday party; I can endure eating out with them and watching them play with their food. I can endure the craziness at bedtime and the screaming when they don’t know how to share toys. But I cannot endure Elmo and, yet it seems I have to. This is my inner child screaming for a way out and there is no out. There is a way out of cleaning poppy diapers, a way of sleepless night, waking a baby grandson for an hour at 2 am, a way out of coaching them to eat when they have no interest in food, a way out of distracting them from dangerous behavior, but I believe with all my heart, there will be no way out of my Friday night meet and greet with Elmo or my name, Gran, will be mud.
I don’t feel bad about this negative feeling even though I am a yogini and teach yoga all day in the positive light of the universe. You see, Elmo isn’t real. Elmo is a made up character in Seasame Street so he doesn’t have to touch my heart or my mind. This really gets me off the hook because it doesn’t relate to my karma in past lives or on earth. Now, I’m free to really despise the big guy. Take that, Elmo!
Now I feel better.
Namaste
Joan