Friday, May 09, 2008

Everything I Know About Life I Learned From My Toddler's Scraps

C was feeding Tricky his dinner tonight, a delightful pasta and leftover soup combination with grated cheese.

Tricky likes his dinner both as fingerfood and on (several) spoons, variety of serving being the spice of life. (Similarly water must be available in waterbottle, sippy cup and Big Boy Cup.)

Everything was going very nicely until a piece of pasta slithered off one of the many spoons and ended up on the floor.

Tricky instantly twisted about trying to spot the lost morsel. Pasta! He called mournfully as if attempting to attract a mongrel dog. Pasta! Eventually C got fed up with all the pasta grief. It’s gone, I heard him say finally, can you just let it go? The Pasta is Gone.

How many times, I thought, have I had to say this very thing and using that very same tone to myself over the years?

The job I failed to get.
The play that never found a producer.
The boy I never kissed.
The boy I did kiss but deeply regretted it.
The tests on our reproductive organs we chose not to have earlier.
The transfer that didn't.

These are the limp fusilli* of our life and once dropped, they must not be fussed over, they must be Let Go.

(And either be eaten by the dog or perhaps turn up on the bottom of your toddler’s sandal next morning.)

*Or perhaps spaghetti. I think that boy I shouldn’t have kissed was definitely a rigatoni.

7 comments:

Mima said...

Its a true life lesson, letting go of the things that we can't have, can't believe that we end up learning it so early, but we do!! Poor little Tricky, hope he gets pasta again soon to make up for it!

Mony said...

Good starchy advice.
There will be more pasta, surely? More pasta that makes it to our lips and tastes like heaven.
Here's to future pasta.

MsPrufrock said...

It's funny where our moments of clarity come from, isn't it?

Betty F said...

Good Advice! I'll have to remember that.

Dramalish said...

Amen.
The Pasta Is Gone.
That's a phrase I can repeat when I find I'm torturing myself with the past...a.
;)
-D.

Anonymous said...

dramalish is a funny girl.

little tricky makes me laugh

Maggie May said...

Yes..... if only it was so easy to let go of life's problems as to ignore a piece of dropped pasta.
Good post!