Once again I've gotten away from blogging. I don't know quite how that happens, or what triggers it. Why haven't I wanted to write for 2 weeks? I don't know.
In my last post I asked summer to go away, and sure enough, it did. We've had cold weather (enough to require long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and coats, of all things), we've had endless wind, we've had rain. Tomorrow, finally, it's supposed to get to all of 83 degrees. This is downright peculiar for Ridgecrest in mid-May. I suppose it's because the world is ending this weekend.
I wanted to write something about Mother's Day, and I wonder if that wasn't what shut me up a few weeks ago -- the difficulty in writing about the day. It's a funny day for me. It's a sad day, because my own mother is gone. And yet, when she was alive, she was not very fond of the holiday, and we didn't make a big deal out of it. A tasteful card was enough.
When MY children get a little older, I plan to make a VERY big deal out of it. Cards will be expected, also gifts, breakfast in bed, and I would like to be taken out to brunch. Ha ha. Not very likely. But we'll see.
We had a nice Mother's Day this year. We went to Olancha for "brunch" (it was really just lunch) and the boos behaved themselves quite well. Fortunately the scary rabbit was gone, packed away with the other Easter decorations. On our way back to Ridgecrest we stopped at the Pearsonville Park and played on the equipment. Rocket Boy found a piece of charcoal lying around and wrote a Mother's Day message to me on the concrete. Graffitti, I know, but it'll wear away. I liked it very much.
What I actually think about on Mother's Day is all the years that I wanted to be a mother, and what a desperately sad holiday Mother's Day was for me back then. And now here I am with my heart's desire. Which has turned out to be a little different than what I expected. I'm thinking of the song in the musical "Wicked" that goes like this:
...That's why I couldn't be happier
No, I couldn't be happier
Though it is, I admit
The tiniest bit
Unlike I anticipated
But I couldn't be happier
Simply couldn't be happier
(spoken) Well - not "simply":
(sung) 'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little - well - complicated
There's a kind of a sort of : cost
There's a couple of things get: lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed...
Which is not to say that motherhood isn't amazing and wonderful, because it is, and I love my little men more than anything. But the cost of motherhood was higher than I ever thought it would be, and in some ways I think I'm still grappling with that. So every Mother's Day ends up being a time to think about it.
There are bridges you cross you didn't know you crossed until you've crossed...
There's a part of me that's still holding on to the railing of the bridge, saying "no! wait! didn't mean to cross this!" but it's much too late, I'm here.
The bad times are when I don't want to cook dinner, and the daycare teacher pulls me aside YET AGAIN to ask me why the twins aren't potty trained yet, and Baby A bites Baby B, and Baby B draws all over some important piece of paper, and Rocket Boy says "why is the house always such a mess?"
That's when I remember that I used to have a CAT. Just a CAT. Just me and my CAT.
The good times are when we go to a park and everyone has fun playing, and when we go for a stroller walk and see a rabbit, and when we read book after book after book together, and when they go to bed and they both want me to kiss them and then they want to kiss me.
That's when I remember that I'm so glad I have a family. And that maybe, just maybe, I can do this.
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