Life is a matter of choices, of left and
right turns. A journey for which there
is no map and the clues given are subtle warnings that are seldom heeded. Most think their lives will be somehow
different from those that came before, so patterns are repeated over and over
again, like the pattern woven into a bolt of fabric, repetitiously, again and
again. The threads may be of a different
color, the shade slightly changed, but the pattern is the same.
I
sometimes wonder what might have been had my choices been different, but I
never allow the thoughts to linger for a wise man once said, “Be careful what
you wish for.” So I silently cross
myself to ward off evil, for I would never trade parenthood and my three babies
for any path not taken, nor any door unopened.
But in that brief moment that I do allow these thoughts to pass through
my mind, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been wiser to have earned a BA before
learning about diaper rash and baby shots, Little League and girl scout cookie
sales, teacher conferences and Christmas pageants. Would that have made me a better parent? Probably not, but maybe it would have given
me more confidence to have learned about ME before I relinquished my identity
to become a Mommie.
Motherhood
is all consuming, you surrender your own wants and needs to contend with the
totally selfish demands of an infant and loose yourself in caring for this tiny
person who is solely dependent upon you.
I recall one of my first lonely 2:00 a.m. feedings, as I looked down
into the tiny face of my newborn, I was suddenly overwhelmed at the awesome,
eternal responsibility of parenthood! A
feeling of desperation washed over me as I had never felt before as I truly
realized for the first time what nine months of pregnancy had not prepared me
for - PARENTING IS FOREVER!! Unlike anything else we choose to do in life, it
truly is forever. When we marry we
promise to love, honor and cherish until death do us part, but as so many of us
know, there are ways out of that, but you can’t divorce yourself from
parenthood or decide to drop out because it’s not for you after all. Oh, I know there’s always adoption but some
how I feel that once a mother has looked upon a tiny newborn face, or felt the
thrusts of tiny limbs within her womb, motherhood is with her forever. Somewhere deep inside you change and even is someone
else raises the child, you always know that somewhere out there is a speck of
humanity, a breath of life that you are responsible for creating. Creation, what a wondrous, overwhelming,
marvelous thing! So simplistically
beautiful that we take it fore granted, and yet it is so awesomely
miraculous!
So
yes, parenthood is forever, beyond the terrible twos and the first day of
school. Beyond prom night and drivers
ed, beyond the birth of your first grandchild even, you are always the parent,
the elder generation. It spirals off
into the future, the unknown, just as the past spirals back into the darkness,
to the beginning. Each generation, each
parent and child a part of the one that came before, merging, blending one into
the other. Flowing backward, margining
into the sea of faces, of humanity, all a part of the great sea of life. While we may search eternally for the meaning
of life, still we procreate for in spite of our knowledge, our ability to
splice genes and toy with genetics, to send rockets soaring into space and
satellites to photograph other planets, we are still driven by instinct and
hormones, by the age old need to blend those genes into new life and thus
somehow feel we have gained a bit of eternity.
I
have never believed that anyone is a ‘natural born parent’ although I suppose
for some it comes easier than for others, but like learning the self control to
stop a bad habit, it comes with time and effort. I truly love being a mother but I won’t say
it came easily. I was very intimidated
by my first newborn. I read manuals and
studied books and asked for advice wherever I could find it, weeding through
the information to find the truly helpful tidbits. It took awhile for me to realize that there
is no one Right Way, in the end we must choose the way that seems best to us,
what feels right, the most natural for us.
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