What they're saying, and what they're really saying

Sometimes it's important to hear what your children aren't telling you as much as what they are.

For instance, when your high school senior says, "I have to be at school early tomorrow morning," he is really saying, "I've got garbage pick-up duty for calling the coach a moron." When your 10-year-old tells you, "I don't really need any extra money for snacks at school," he means, of course, "I'd really, really, really like to have extra money for snacks at school."

And when your 19-year-old college boy asks you to help him move to his new apartment on a 93-degree day in humid August, there is a world of things he isn't telling you, such as:

"We've already turned the power off at the old place, so there's no air conditioning."

"We paid a cleaning deposit, so we have to scrub, vacuum and generally decontaminate the old place where there's no air conditioning."

And the biggie, which he waits until the last possible minute to reveal:

"Oh, yeah. The, umm, you know, the new apartment, is, umm, you know ... on the third floor."

Third floor. No elevator and a moving crew that consists of the son, the girlfriend, Dad, who is in his 50s and has had a triple bypass, and Mom, in her mid-40s with high blood pressure and weight issues of her own. Thank heavens for 10-year-old Buzz, who ran up and down those two flights of stairs like a mountain goat on speed. If it hadn't been for him, I don't think we'd have ever gotten their stuff moved in.

But it was worth it. I sat on my son's new balcony and appreciated his view of the hills in Goodlettsville, as close to wilderness as you can get that close to Nashville. Fans turned slowly under his vaulted ceilings and the air conditioner was definitely working here. He'd managed to find a bigger apartment at a better price that was not only in a gated, safer community, it was closer to his college and his job. I was proud of him -- and more than a little bit envious. What a totally cool place! I wanted to be 19 again, with all the hopes and future laid before me. I wanted to know what I know now, and to go back and do it all over again.

Then he told me what his schedule was like, between classes, studying and a full time job, and I wasn't quite as eager to take his place.

I think the health scares I've had the past few weeks have prompted a lot of What If thinking, which is only useful if you can use a past What If to change a future How About. What if I had filed my taxes on time? How about I file them now, get it over with, and have that particular concern removed from my massive stack of fears?

It's heavy thinking for the CEO of the Cleopatra Club (Queen of Denial), but I'm making a serious effort to do just that over the next few weeks. Just because the recent health problems seem to be resolved doesn't mean there aren't worse ones waiting, and I'd rather be prepared.

It's a lot like hearing what your children aren't saying. It's like knowing when your 17-year-old says he's tired of being "the nice guy," it means he got dumped again by some silly teenager who would rather have a boyfriend who treated her like dirt. (Of course, it also means his heart got ahead of his brain and he got too serious too quickly again.)

The future is a maze of unspoken conversations and By-The-Ways wait around every corner. The only way to keep them from scaring the bejeebers out of you is knowing they are there and that they are going to jump out of nowhere and demand anything from a dozen cupcakes for the PTA sale to a new windshield for the car.

The odd thing is, though, I'm better at hearing those unspoken comments from my husband than my kids -- and a lot less accurate. I can guess that a long pause in my oldest son's telephone conversation means, "I really need some gas money," and I'll be dead on the money. But when I think the long pause in my husband's telephone conversation means "I've met someone younger and thinner and we're running away to Aruba," I'm simply dead wrong.

Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between what is said, what isn't being said, and what you're afraid might be said ...

Mary Reeves is a Times-Gazette staff writer. She can be reached at mreeves@t-g.com.