The girls were playing outside after an intense 45 minutes running their spelling, working through their math, and gleefully reciting poetry. I should say that it was intense for me, juggling their desire to each be my main focus and the reality that when it comes to NY Common Core 4th Grade math assignments, I cannot multitask. Snacked up and amped up, they’d bolted outside before I said there was more studying to be done.
Watching out the window I couldn’t help but think how choppy these passages are for me. Just when I feel as if I’ve mastered the rhythm of something, I look up and it’s as if the music has changed, my body swaying to a ballad as the sounds of techno smack my ears. Bad metaphor, I’m not a great dancer, but I am a good mom. I know that and it’s what gets me through these times when I feel like I am flailing.
I looked down at my hands as I typed, in the early days I’d have a mug of coffee to one side of the keyboard, a manual breast pump to the other. I would get up at dawn, it was the best time for pumping and writing, one sustaining my girls, the other me. Some mornings I’d have a baby in my arms, the stories would come slower, punctuated with kisses and coos.
I feel so tender toward that younger me. She was exhausted and constantly questing to get it right. Counting the minutes between feedings, making sure they slept on their tummies, researching appropriate milestones, deciding what was best for our family and defending it as necessary. There is so much guesswork when they’re babies, interpreting their cries and demands as best you can, but with no real confirmation other than your instinct, which everyone from family to strangers will challenge.
I realize that where I am now is not much different. I was thirty when I became pregnant with Briar, I’m now forty. Briar is approaching tweendom and I am weighing whether I’m too old for certain styles or if I need to get more serious about eye cream. The exhaustion is different; the uncomplicated cure-all of breastfeeding no longer an option, the impulse to treat away hurts or frustrations a constant foe. I have every bit as much optimism and ambition as I did then, but they are tempered by the way life peels the onion. The way you learn that good people will die and people will let you down. The weight of one week sharing a beautiful love story and having it be met with incredible support, to the next week hearing that there are still people filled with hate.
My hands are older, in many ways more capable for the years they’ve spent caressing brows and clicking keys, but still my own. My heart is every bit as filled with love and wonder for these girls as they were at those first flutters I felt. Writing has gotten me through; the stories of our days filling up the screen, sometimes going on to light up other screens, other times staying private, titleless narratives that live in a private library. As I dive headlong into this new decade filled with top 40 songs and closed doors, I hope that I can trust myself. The instinct that I followed as a new mom was never challenged by my daughters, when it was challenged by others I held my ground. This quest to raise my girls with love and to equip them with the tools they need to move farther from my babies and towards the women they’ll be, it is the most important thing that I’ll do.
That, and teach them not to hit the damn button on the iPhone that turns the camera around.
Tagged: Confidence, daughters
Oh, yes. This new decade, indeed. Grace is about to turn 11, and I’m incredibly, painfully aware of all that is about to turn, change, pivot, and the truth is I’m afraid, and I feel as unsure as I did way back then. xox
It keeps us honest, this uncertainty. xo
Hah! That last line! That photo! xo
Sometimes I could swear it’s just that my phone is a smart ass.
Seriously, the iPhone camera turn around scares me every time. Who is that old lady looking back at me. That old lady with a daughter who now comes up to her nose. Love this.
The other day I caught my reflection in a store window, my hair looked like David Lee Roth and my face looked like a long faced Shar Pei.
Each of your sentences resonated so deeply with me… In part because you and I are the same age and my oldest is almost there as well…. But more than that, you have a gift…. These ‘passages of time’ seem ordinary most days, but massaged by your hand and heart, I’m reminded of their extraordinary. Xo
You know Danielle, your comment reminds me that I have not told you how much your chronicling the times you leave home for work engagements and the way your homecoming go means to me. Motherhood is so steeped in guilt and what ifs, add travel and a public life, forget it.
It means so much that you took the time to say this and that you so openly share your own ups and downs. xo
Amanda,
Your writing is powerful and provides sustenance not only for you. Thank you!
Wow, thank you, truly.
My youngest will be 11 soon and though I’ve been through this stage twice before, I still worry that I won’t get it right. She’s different. I’m different. And it is all so important. Beautiful post, Amanda. It’s nice to know that others share the same sort of inner struggles.
Oh, so I’ll feel this each time 😉
Thank you, Shannon, I think it’s when we are honest about this stuff we really help one another.
So lovely. I’m nearly the same age as you, but my experience is quite different because my son is only two and I entered motherhood quite a bit later. But I too feel like I’m in a transitional point in my life. Maybe that feeling — no matter where you are in the journey of motherhood — is common to many women as they realize that they have gone through four decades of life.
I think it’s easy to forget that we share things, even when they are unspoken or unseen. It certainly helps me to hear comments like yours. So thank you.
“I feel so tender toward that younger me…”
Truer at 60 even than 40. Wink passages, as usual, capture something essential and just a bit our of reach. Love your words.
Thanks, mama. Love you.
So much for me here
in these beautiful words of yours.
xo
Thank you, sweet friend.
Beautiful. You have such a sweet sorrow in your writing voice that makes me think of sunrise. I relate to this line: “I would get up at dawn, it was the best time for pumping and writing, one sustaining my girls, the other me.” Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Carinn. I love the way that you said this. It really means a lot as sometimes I wonder if the lacing of sorrow is tedious. I do think it’s beautiful and am so grateful you found that as well.
So beautiful, Amanda! I’m glad you can feel compassion for your younger self–it’s all too easy to get angry at our younger selves for not knowing or doing certain things! It sound like you’re at a beautiful stage of your life.
So easy to err on the side of disappointment or anger with ourselves. Thank you!
“Life peels the onion.” Too many stinging tears, these past few months. You’re beautiful, you know. Smart and funny. They soak all of that up and are better for it.
Love you, babe.
Arg– that view of myself from the chin up and up the nose. I can’t blame my kids though. I think I press it on accident. The worst is when I press facetime by accident. Is it by accident or on accident? Hmmm . . .
Anyway, very touching and thought-provoking post as yours always are. Sometimes I feel like it’s been one long day since we had our first, over nine years ago. Most of the day has been good, but there have been low points. Still–the time is both so fast and so slow–it’s hard to feel as anything other than a giant chunk of time.
Thank you Amanda for these beautiful thought provoking words. Its been a while since I had a little/medium one in the house, but you bring it all back with intensity. Lunch with a little tear running down my left cheek. Thank you
I love this idea of having compassion for yourself as a younger mother. I feel that, too. It makes me think that in ten years time I’ll have compassion for myself, the mother I am trying to be now. Which makes me wonder why don’t I just get started with that future compassion right this minute?