Every summer, I leave the incessant hustle and bustle of New York behind with my two daughters—now five and eight years old—in tow to spend a few weeks in my hometown of Toronto. I haven’t lived there with any regularity since I was 22, but my bedroom has remained basically unchanged, aside from the crib that now sits at the foot of my childhood bed for visiting grandchildren. My big, suburban walk-in closet is bursting with paraphernalia from my past; inside this minimalist Manhattan mommy lives a sentimental pack-rat.
Despite the luxury of a backyard and a basement filled with toys, at least once a day I find the little ladies riffling through that closet and my past.
There are dresses from my Bat Mitzvah, this formal and that prom, graduations, engagement parties, showers, and the wedding dress that I try on every year. The coordinating corsages, ribbon hats, and veil reside in boxes on the shelf above.
There’s a box of cassette tapes that I can no longer play and, sadly, nearly all are unavailable on iTunes.
There are Playbills and ticket stubs, yearbooks, programs from grad school variety shows, expired passports, every book VC Andrews published (and we worry about our kids reading The Hunger Games), stuffed animals won at carnivals, and stacks of old magazines. (Did you know nearly every bride on the cover of InStyle Weddings subsequently finds herself on People or US Weekly under the headline “It’s Over”? Someone should definitely look in to that.)
From camp, I have color war scavenger hunt finds, cleanest cabin pennants, and items stolen from the dining hall by my sticky-fingered oldest friend, bunkmate, co-counselor, and college roommate now known to my girls as the strict and serious (as compared to me) Auntie Sherri.
I saved every token of love from the heart-shaped candy box that held my first Valentine’s chocolates (received in third grade) to the cards and rose petals from the early days of my courtship and marriage to the man my girls call “Daddy.” I overheard my older daughter reading some old love letters to my younger one: “Lani, I can’t believe it has already been a month. Happy Anniversary, Dave.” The second in the pile: “Lani, I can’t believe it has already been two months. Happy Anniversary, Dave.” Needless to say, they were both cracking up. I find it hard to believe I maintained a straight face in the first place. They were also interested in a 15-pager written on thick ecru paper by someone with fortuitously atrocious handwriting. Life lesson #1 – Marry a man of deeds, not words.
There are albums full of pictures of trips much enjoyed but long forgotten. After my trip to Europe following freshman year of college, I came home heavier than I was even when nine months pregnant. Life lesson #2 – Do not add fondue to the freshman 15.
As they look through, try on, read, and laugh, there is so much I want to tell them. Every tchotchke is a memory, some fond and others not. Standing in my closet, I feel both phantom growing pains and echoes of the thrills of important milestones like first kisses, first jobs, and getting a driver’s license (albeit on the second try).
I want to tell them that loss of skin elasticity (literal) thankfully coincides with a gain in skin thickness (metaphorical), but they should still wear sunscreen because there are things even Botox can’t fix.
I want to tell them about the tears not worth shedding—the test you don’t ace, the boy who doesn’t call, the bangs that will eventually grow out—and the tears definitely worth shedding—the last day of camp, when you lose a pet, when you hurt someone you love. I want to tell them about the fights worth fighting and the friendships worth saving.
I want to tell them to keep one eye on the past, one eye on the future, and the rest of themselves in the present.
I would love to download my hard-won knowledge into their developing brains. I would love for them to have wisdom without experience because often best of the former comes from the worst of the latter. Alas, I will have to watch them occasionally stumble and fall through life, school, and relationships as I watched them stumble and fall through the living room when they were learning to walk. I will watch them make a mess of things as they did their beds and my bathroom during potty-training. I will watch and I will not look away, lest I miss when those toddles turn to twirls and the misses to slam-dunks.
My girls will continue to look through these artifacts and try to construct their version of the girl I once was. Eventually, I hope that they understand that the me they know now, the me that is their mommy, is still a work in progress and that they’re a huge part of continual growth and change. I’ll keep my life (and my closet) open to them, within the bounds of good parenting and good taste. And I’ll let them know that, no matter what, they are my greatest treasures and my happy ending.
Lani Serota is the mother of two young girls, besotted wife, sleep aficionado (both her own and that of children), and celebrity child name enthusiast who loves a good giggle. When she is not working at one of her three jobs, taking advantage of everything New York City has to offer, or procrastinating, she loves to write.
