Monday, January 7, 2019

Call me Mom.

After 3 and a half years, I still feel odd that I am someone’s mother. I look at her and think, “Where did you come from?” and then I correct myself and think, “From where did you come?” Lol.

It is an odd feeling being a parent. Knowing that you are now responsible for someone else’s well-being. I could always handle taking care of myself and if I couldn’t and slipped up, my husband took care of me, but now there’s a third being in the mix. 

At first my thoughts were consumed by all the bad that could befall her and now they are consumed by money, bills, budgets, hospital costs, dental care, school tuition, and how, just how did I not see this coming 10 years ago when I blew it all...but then, does anyone? Hindsight is 20/20 they say. Foresight sure would be nice. 

She wants to go, go, go, and do, do, do, and see, see, see, learning and taking it all in and all the while being this beautiful, masterful little thing that shocks me and delights me and comforts me and keeps me whole.

I want to give it all to her on a silver platter. If ever a child were deserving of all of it, it’s her, even if she did leave a trail of confetti through the house while my husband and I were gone. Even if she then blamed it on her invisible friend Fred, telling us Fred did it and her cousin was not her “accomplish.”

I see nostalgia everywhere and perhaps it is because I never grew up. I long for her to have all that I had but then reality steps in says, “If she has all that you had, when will her own memories be hers? How much can you really pass on to the child and how much does she need to create on her own?”

So where does this fine line end? How many books have been written about this struggle? Why do we continue to reproduce knowing that we cannot possibly provide a perfect amount of every ingredient and knowing that someday they’ll face rejection, happiness, criticism, duty, fear, love, and all those emotions that bind us up inside and stop us moving forward, momentarily.

How do I make this perfect for her? The answer is that I cannot. I do not have the power or the means. Someday we may be homeless, someday we may be dead, someday she may face the world alone, but now, today, this moment, I need to do better. I need to provide more, be more, give more to her. I need to mom. I have to mom. I am Mom.