There Goes My Life

Yeah…it’s a sappy country song by Kenney Chesney.  I didn’t look up the lyrics…I typed them while I listened to the song…so I may be paraphrasing here…but it starts like this:

All he could think about was, how “I’m too young for this.”  Got my whole life ahead…hell, I’m just a kid myself.  How am I gonna raise one?  All he could see were his dreams goin’ up in smoke.  So much for ditchin’ this town and hangin’ out on the coast.  Oh well.  Those plans are long gone.  He said…”There goes my life.  There goes my future, my everything, might as well…kiss it all good-bye.  There goes my life.”

So originally…after listening to this whole song…I had this whole thought process about how the same phrase can mean such different things.  And you’ll get that if you read the rest of the lyrics or if you’ve already heard the song.  But then when I started writing…it dawned on me that what I really wanted to write about is my personal connection to this song.  I can completely imagine the situation.  For those who don’t know…I got pregnant just a few months after I turned 15.  Not the ideal situation.  However…I have to say, I never truly felt like the boy in the story.  I never felt like my life was over.  Maybe it was because I had an incredibly supportive mother.  Maybe it was because I just don’t really have that panic reaction to life.  I have no idea.  But I never felt that way.  I got frustrated, yes.  The first time my jeans didn’t fit…I cried.  I hated maternity clothes…they were so ugly back then.  And when my daughter was born…I had never held an infant before.  EVER.  The smallest baby I’d ever held was a 10 month old who’d been shoved into my arms one day while his mother checked the mail.  So I was truly without ANY experience.  But that just never occurred to me.  I just took her and off we went.  I was not the greatest parent.  Sixteen year olds are selfish.  But I loved her.  Sometimes I treated her like a toy…sometimes I was frustrated because I couldn’t do what I wanted because I had her.  But I always loved her.

The song continues with him coming to that realization:

Couple years of up all night and a few thousand diapers later, that mistake he thought he made, covers up the refrigerator.  Oh yeah, he loves that little girl.  Mama’s waitin’ to tuck her in as she fumbles up those stairs.  She smiles back at him, draggin’ that teddy bear.  Sleep tight...blue eyes and bouncin’ curls.  And he smiles.  There goes my life.  There goes my future, my everything. I love you, daddy goodnight.  There goes my life.

I don’t suppose I really felt this way either.  It was just a matter-of-fact thing that I had her.  She was just part of my life.  Part of what made me who I was.  I accepted that as being the norm.  I ended up getting married and having another child later…and my relationship with that child was very different.  I felt more like the mother of a child than a teenager with a very expensive and delicate new toy.  I loved that child just as much…just in a very different way.  They grew up to be almost total opposites too.  Sometimes I wonder if my relationship with them as babies caused that.  I don’t think you can ever know something like that, though.

For those who need to know how Kenney Chesney’s story ends…here’s the last verse:

She had that Honda loaded down, with Abercrombie clothes and fifteen pairs of shoes…and his American Express.  He checked the oil, slammed the hood, said “You’re good to go.”  She hugged ‘em both…and headed off to the West Coast.  And he cried, “There goes my life.  There goes my future, my everything.  I love you.  Baby, goodbye.”

I never handed my daughter or my son my credit card and sent them off the college.  It didn’t work that way for me.  Although I wish I could have.  Of course…this is real life and not a country song, too.  But what strikes me…is that the song still reminds me of the emotion I have for my kids and how different they are and how different my life is because of them.

That mistake I made at 15?  Yeah…21 years later when I decided to plan my wedding to my current husband…she was the ONLY choice for Maid of Honor.  Because while I have very good and dear friends…she’s my best friend.  She gets me.  We don’t always see eye to eye…but we are more alike than any two people I know and I know that I can always talk to her and she will always understand.  I can be a bigger dork around her than anyone.  A bigger sap.  A bigger nerd.  I don’t have to be anyone but me with her.  She can guess what I’m thinking more often than anyone else.  Usually because she’s thinking the same thing.  I guess it comes from growing up while watching her grow up.  And being a little smug and proud when people tell me “Your daughter is so awesome.  She’s just like you.”

To come full circle with that original thought about how the same phrase can mean two VERY different things…well, I’m hoping you got that by now.  There goes my life.  I may have never felt the first one…but every time she walks away…I pretty much feel the second one.