I had planned on blogging about something else entirely today, until I read this article tonight. I was deeply moved by the author’s perspective on what it meant to have her mother in her life. I especially liked two parts of this article. The first was when the author describes her mother as being “intensely present” and the second was when she recounts an evening when her mother leaned over and told her about a letter than she’d written to her own mother and the author felt like she was seeing her mother as a whole person for the first time.
I was making necessary phone calls this morning on the way to the gym (Emmaline’s birthday party is tomorrow and I was woefully unprepared) when I realized that Max had been sitting quietly in his car seat, waiting for me to hang up the phone so he could have my attention. Ahhh, the motherhood guilt. So I put the phone away, realizing that I could make phone calls at a different time, and I focused on Max. What he really wanted was to sing along with me to the New Moon Soundtrack and attempt to say all the words. Max loves to sing in the car and he loves to sing with me. The kid has a gift, I tell you. He wanted to point out to me the birds in the sky and any motorcycles he saw on the road. I realized again how easy it is to be distracted and I realized again that I need to constantly reign myself in. I loved that the woman in the article described her mother as “intensely present”. I like to think that this is not a code phrase for over-bearing (it didn’t seem to be in the article)- but something that I can aspire to be. To just be in the moment with the kids.
I have also been pondering my identity lately- which is why the other part of the article resonated with me. At this point in life, my kids only know me as “Mom”. I’m like the school teacher who they think lives at their school and sleeps in her classroom. I’m the authority figure and the decision maker. I’m the gatekeeper and the rule enforcer. I’m also the one who hugs them and listens to them and tucks them in at night and mediates fights and provides food and insists on their personal hygiene. But I feel incongruent sometimes, because how they see me is not how I see me. I’m trying to reconcile this person inside of me who still can’t believe that I’m even old enough to have kids, let alone be responsible for raising 4 of them, and that I’m still trying to figure out what kind of person I want to be when I grow up. I feel so incomplete and some days fatally flawed. I’m actually looking forward to the kids growing up and being able to see the whole of me. The imperfections (the kids are more familiar with those than anyone else in the world) and the feelings and inadequacies that define me. Hopefully they will forgive my flaws and their therapists can help with the rest.
Motherhood’s a tricky thing. Parenting is tricky. There are days when I feel like it’s a mine field and one misstep will cause this whole house of cards to fall. But then I remembered my yoga experience in class this morning. While I was focusing on breathing and holding my pose and listening to my body, my yoga instructor reminded the class to make sure to feel and experience gratitude also. When she said that I took another deep breath and I tried to let my mind open up. As soon as I did, I felt gratitude literally fill me up and I saw my Ernie kissing me good-bye this morning and I heard Max singing along with me- in tune and everything- on the drive and I felt Emmaline hug me after I fixed her hair for school and I was happy and I felt grateful.
Thank goodness motherhood is really all about love. I’ll find my identity and work through my weaknesses in time, and the kids will see me how they want to until they grow up and then have the maturity to see me more as I really am- but forever and for always and for right now, they love me and I love them. The loving is what will get us through, I think.
