I guess this is Gru-ing up

adolescence and the unexpected grief of a quadrilogy

There is a moment as we’re walking down the hall of AMC at The Grove where I realize that we’re all the same size. Not exactly, of course. Archer is taller than the rest of us but in the reflection of the plastic overlay of the movie posters, our family silhouette lacks its former incline.

There was a time when it was very obvious who the oldest was and who were the babies. Now we form an adult-sized line.

It happens fast, the changes. For boys, too, but for girls its exponential. One day you wake up to a house full of women and you can’t figure it out. You can’t figure it out as you watch the red-vested man in check-out scan an assembly line of enormous bras that are not yours and you can’t figure it out when you’re buying period products in bulk and everyone wants their nails done but, like, the kind of nails that are long with things on them and you can’t figure it out when you’re washing blood stains out of literally everything and somehow you just spent $80 on razors even though you were just buying razors last week and “wait, mom, if you’re still there will you pick up mascara,” and “MOM! where are you. I need a ride to Pasadena,” and “Mom, are you coming home soon? I need a ride to K-town” and “I hate you I love you I hate you I love you I hate you I love you go away wait where are you going come back and don’t forget the mascara.”

Maybe that’s just part of being a parent in this phase of life. Every day a new acclimation to a changing shape. Bags of clothes that no longer fit with no one in the house to pass them down to. A nervous system that feels as though its training for a marathon. The emotional hangover that must be shaken off every morning in order to do it all over again.