Thursday, September 12, 2019

Foreign Territory: We've Been Here Before


I pull into our long driveway in silence.  No cars are parked in the drive.  I push the button and the garage door slowly retracts.  Sandy cat strolls up from the deck with a long stretch, looking more perturbed that I’ve broken his slumber, than happy to see me.  He tangles himself in between my ankles as a reminder that he is hungry.  I stop and fill up his bowl.  The puppies are going crazy.  Their enthusiasm for my return seems a little more authentic.  Buddy is genuinely happy I am home. Bean just wants me to fill his bowl too.  After all the animals are fed I look around.  I can see where you left in a hurry this morning.  Packages from your on the go breakfast and lunch are left behind.  I pick up your mess gladly.  I load the dishwasher.  It seems that this is what is left of motherhood, or what I have defined motherhood to be. 

From the moment they handed you to me I have felt immense happiness and a deep anxiety.  Some mothers may not understand that second part.  Anytime you hear women talk about having children they share the happiness part, but some are ashamed to talk about the anxieties this incredible role places on a person; on a mother.  One day I drove to the hospital, just me, a normal young woman who had never considered the absolute terror of being responsible for another human being.  I left the hospital a “mother”.  There was no test to pass.  There wasn’t a competency checklist.  No one walked in before I left and said, “Okay you are good to take her home.  We feel like you are acceptably competent to raise this human being.  You are by no means proficient.  We’ve included study materials for that.  But, we don’t think you’ll kill her. Sign here.”  Nope! They just handed you to me with some discharge paperwork and took me to the car.  Dad was walking quietly behind me. 

I still recall the way the harsh sunlight hit my face when they wheeled me out of the hospital.  I immediately looked down to see if the sun was in your eyes and adjusted your blanket.  Luckily that occurred instinctually.  I watched as dad nervously adjusted the car seat.  We worked and worked to get you clicked in safely.  Finally we were loaded up.  Dad was in the front seat and I was strapped in beside you.  I looked up and saw dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror.  He was just as terrified as me, but was putting on a strong face.  You know dad.  We left the circle drive and hit a bump.  My C-section incision seared with pain, but I didn’t care.  I looked at you.  Were you okay?  Did that wake you up?  Your tiny head was slumped over the car seat strap; your underdeveloped neck muscles too weak to hold it up.  I reached down and gently pushed it back.  I held your head up the whole way home. 

Home.  The house I walked back into seemed so foreign.  Everything was just as we left it, but none of it felt familiar.  I didn’t know where to set you down.  I didn’t know where to sit once I picked you up out of the car seat.  I just stood there so…unsure.  Hours turned to days and days to weeks.  Mothering during the infant years was the hardest for me.  Listening to all the other mothers, old and young, I should know how to decipher your cries.  I would know when it was hunger, sleepiness, or pain.  I didn’t.  It was just crying and I would have done anything to sooth you.  I think I got my stride eventually. Dad says I did.  I probably worried and read more books on mothering than anyone else who has ever given birth to a child.  I wanted to mother you perfectly.  If it was considered best practice, well that was what we were practicing.  Looking back I am sure your enjoyed the short reprieves from my over-mothering when you stayed with Maw and Aunt Robin.  Those visits were filled with ease of atmosphere, yummy unhealthy foods, and lots of laughs.  Part of me was terrified to what you were exposed to, but there was a part of my heart that was so thankful for this.  I knew you needed it and it just wasn’t something I could give.  I couldn’t give it because in my mind to be the best mother I had to follow every rule that pointed to what was right.

Right.  You are 16 now and this term as it applies to mothering is laughable.  What in the world is right? Who knows?  Who cares?  Right is not a standard that applies to all children across the board.  Right is something so dynamic based on the people involved.  In our little world those people are dad, you, and me.  Our right can be and is so very different than the right of other families we know.  The beautiful thing about a family is that love is always right and we’ve got so much of that.  I wish I would have known this sooner.  I wish I wouldn’t have stressed out and stressed you out over the stupidest things.  I wouldn’t have freaked out over the homework assignments you didn’t quite understand.  I wouldn’t have been so hard on you for being too talkative in class.  I wouldn’t have forced you to take piano when you made it clear you didn’t like it.  I would have let you pick out more outfits because they made you feel pretty and not because I thought they were cute and made you look like a kid that came from a “good home”.  I wanted people to know that.  I wanted you to be proud of who you were and who I was.  I wanted to be proud of it.

So much of the silliness I inflicted on you over the years came from some deep insecurities developed in my childhood.  I wanted so badly to be like the little girls that came from good homes.  I wanted your outfits to match and have pretty little bows to go with each of them.  If I could do it all over again I would have let you wear that same dress 3 or 4 times a week.  The one that made you feel like a princess.  I would have let you wear the worn out white church sandals with the heel and the missing rhinestones everyday.  I would have done that because I feel like maybe I took away a little bit of what makes you Hannah over the years.  I toned you down and pushed you in a box that the mother’s in our community created.  I can’t be mad at them. After all they created that box for the same reason I tried to jam you into it.  They loved their daughters; however misguided that can be.  Luckily you retained some of the things that make you magical.  The other night when I kissed your forehead and told you how glad I was that God made you just as you are, your respond made me smile.  “Mom.  I think God knew exactly what you needed when he made me.  That is why I am the way I am.”  You are so wise.  You are not perfect, but gosh you are so very close. 

Lately you have made some very grown up decisions and I am blown away when you explain why you made them.  They are well thought out and intelligent. They give me hope that when you do leave our home for college you will be more than prepared to handle whatever life throws your way.  You have made your commitment to God so apparent during these teenage years.  I know there are things you struggle with.  I know you have big questions and life is hard during this season.  Heck, life is hard in every season.  You always find a way to surprise me with how you process it all and then decisively do what you know to be right, by God, and for you.  You do this with minimal instruction from me.  So I do thank God for you and I thank him for knowing what I needed in a daughter. 

You will always be my baby.  I know I say that to you all the time, but that love and anxiety that I felt the day they handed you to me, and every milestone you’ve come up against and conquered, is still very present in my heart.  Sure it has changed as the obstacles of each season of life have changed for both of us.  My worries now center on everything I might of done wrong.  Have I prepared you enough? Are you ready to graduate and actually move out of this home I’ve spent so many years making for you? Not only do I worry if you will make it, because I kind of know you will, after all you are too smart not to.  What I really about is… will you flourish? Will you find a great group of friends to lean on? Will you find a college church group that you love attending and continue to grow in your faith? Will you love college and find a career path that brings you joy and purpose, but still support you financially? 

As you continue to mature, into this young woman before me, I cant help but look around this big empty house, reminisce on the day that I brought you home, and think to myself… how did this happen?  I simultaneously ponder on the journey behind us, the amazing life we celebrate each day, and the future before us.  I am a little disoriented. I must admit that this part of motherhood feels strangely like the first days I brought you home.  I look around and it is our home.  It’s all our things, yet the people who fill it aren’t sitting in their places.  It is foreign to me.  You are out living your busy life, and I love that.  But some days after the animals are fed and the dishes are loaded in the dishwasher I just don’t know where to sit down.  I don’t know what to cook for dinner.  I don’t know how to best mother you right now.  A clumsy dance of hold on and let go ensues.  I don’t know what the perfect response is to this season of motherhood is.  What is that..Perfect? Yes, I I know.  I agreed to let that concept go.  But you know me, kiddo. You know me better than anyone else could. 





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