Well, it’s been a while. Aside from finally taking my leave at work - at 36 weeks, (we’re now at 39 - and that "Final Countdown" song is in my head right now), I have still yet to find the time for the things I really would like to do. Using that sewing machine, putting time and effort into writing, (I was craving chocolate covered frozen bananas…like 3 months ago - my blog has been abandoned it seems), and maybe even really getting lost in a book. Alas, I think that maybe I am avoiding all of these things due to an overwhelming need to nest. To prepare for what is very soon to come. I wake in the morning with excitement about doing a flipping load of laundry for Pete’s sake. Crazy. Maybe so - because in my normal daily life, laundry was a pain in my ass that I had to make time for around my work schedule. Now here I am at home, and I can do laundry all day. If there’s nothing to wash, I will find something damn it. And I dare anyone to try and stop me! I’ve washed all of my son’s clothes - and every time we receive or purchase anything new for him…I get excited about washing it. Seriously. Here is our little nursery nook. We are planning on moving in the not too distant future - so trying to keep things simple. Also, I love that this bassinet is portable. It is going to be right next to my bed very soon!
Anyhow, back to the subject at hand...sometimes, it takes certain things to shake me up, to you know…get me writing. When life is complacent and with its normal annoyances, I tend to get caught up in the mundane. I start to just go through the motions. However, there are things keeping me up at night lately. Maybe it’s just my pregnant body preparing me for the very near future. Whatever it is, I cannot fall asleep at a decent hour these days, and when my mind does shut down - it is very soon awoken with thoughts that nag at my brain. Mistakes I have made in the past (regrets), something I said that I wish I could take back, or just all the bad things that happen every day, every moment in this world - and how lucky I am that I have my family and home, and that we are all safe and relatively happy.
I guess, I carry a whole crap load of guilt around on my shoulders. I feel awful about things I did nearly 2 decades ago to my parents. I lay awake at night wondering if my daughter will ever be able to get past her hurt and anger over coming from a broken home and all the emotional trimmings that go along with it. No matter how I try to explain to her all the why’s and how’s of all the choices I made in the past - in order to change our circumstances, there is still resentment and blame there, and it is dead center focused on me. Selfishly, I just want to scream at the top of my lungs and let it all out. Like a child. Exclaiming proclamations and placing blame anywhere but on myself. Shouting out what I believe to be true and right, and vindicating myself from all of it. From the mess that I most undoubtedly bestowed upon her - along with others. However, I am mom, the sole caretaker, the one who had to put a stop to the way things were, and therefore, the target. The punching bag.
When I really sit back and think about it - I absolutely get it. I understand, and I accept it. I am not too proud a parent to pause at certain times and apologize when warranted. Yes, there is a limit - I am the adult, and there has to be a level of respect and obedience on her part, but I also have to take all those emotions and really stop and pay attention to them when they come flying at me, because - she has every right to feel them. Sometimes they come in a whisper, sometimes through tears, sometimes hysteria, and sometimes with utter and complete deafening silence. The logical side of me knows…no matter what. She would have these emotions. Even if our lives were the most ordinary of ordinary. It’s her age and stage. She would find something to be angry about, she would find something to question, something, anything to create a stir.
Being a parent is the most beautiful and heartbreaking experience of my life. It has humbled me to the core - and brought me to my knees many a time. There is something so fragile and delicate about our relationship with our children. We will undoubtedly fail, we will inevitably have our hearts broken in ways we never could have even begun to imagine.
In many ways, I believe that through all of this I have learned more than anything…that I shouldn’t obsess and over analyze everything that has happened to me while on this earth, (aside from the absolutely tragic moments in life). That yes, it hurt like hell when this or that happened, and yes, it changed me. No matter who’s fault it was, no matter who was responsible - I hold the power in how I choose to process it. In how I take those experiences and move on with my life, because at the end of the day, it’s my life, it’s my happiness - and my responsibility to get on with it, before it catches up and swallows me and who I am and everything I wish to be. OMG - I sound like an episode of Oprah.
For my daughter, I hope she grows to learn some sense of this. After all the teenage drama and questioning of authority and blah blah blah. So annoying. Ahem.... Someday, hopefully not too many years from now, I hope she can take all my mistakes and those of others that affected her - and be stronger for it. I hope she can look into her own child’s eyes one day and see the bigger picture. I hope that she is humbled and blessed at the same time, and grows to know and realize that she is the only one
responsible for her well being and peace of mind, that no one or no thing can take that away from her. That yes, it's okay to feel angry and to face all of those things that we feel messed us up in our life (sometimes head on), but also.... life has to move on and in order to grow personally, we must take all that crap, and let it go - if not all of it, as much as we can. We are
responsible for our actions, for how we react, for how we choose to live despite what life throws at us. A lesson that I can never teach her - but only let her learn and find on her own.
This is not to say that I am the mother of a morose and miserable young lady, who sits around looking for things to complain about. To the contrary! I am so proud of her and all her accomplishments. I am in awe of her tenacity and amused by her unique and sometimes strange and hilarious sense of humor. I am touched by her sweet sensibility and love of things all family oriented. This is a child who will sit and talk with all the adults in the room with no interest whatsoever in texting on her phone, or browsing the Internet on her laptop. She would much rather hang out with mom - or whomever is at home, asking us endless questions and proclaiming unproven facts about everything from the assassination of Osama Bin Laden to hybrid dolphins in the Pacific. I am shocked frankly, at how smart she is - and wonder where she got it from. Probably her Uncle Bob. Certainly not yours truly!
In the meantime, I will do my best - as a mother to a teenage girl to keep my cool (most of the time) and refrain from unleashing my motherly wrath upon her whenever my temper gets lost. I will save my abandonment of sanity and patience, only for the most necessary of times when warranted, and that’s all I can say about that. ;-)
