I thought I would get on here and post some thoughts (miracle of miracles!):
I am surrounded by Christmas decorations--half put up and half laying around on the floor waiting to be assigned a place for the month. And I am starting to get that Christmas-y feeling.....
The hard/beautiful part of that Christmas-y feeling is that it always brings memories of my mom. This was her "basking" time of year, and now innately I want to do the same--put on Mannheim Steamroller's Stille Nacht, turn the lights off, lie down in front of the Christmas tree and just bask.... and cry. I actually can't hear that song without crying anymore; that is the quintessential Mom song for me. But the feeling is a sweet kind of painful, and it's lovely, not bitter or depressing, so it's welcome around this time of year.
And reflecting on Mom, for the life of me, I can't figure out how anyone else was born into the family after Tera... what do people do with more than two children?? Really, I want more than that myself (many more), but I'm still not sure I'll survive the stage I'm in now, with just the two. I am learning that a huge portion of motherhood must take place in the Now--does that sound like a super obvious statement? Let me explain...
I have been realizing the last month or so that I am TERRIBLE at the whole Ecclesiastical idea of seasons. I have goals, and they all need to be achieved now! I keep looking at the future and panicking about the things I'm not getting done now, things that I want to already have accomplished by my forties, like a Masters degree and a bestselling book, and a job working at a university. Thinking, I still want to be young and in touch (yes, I know, ridiculous) when I do those things. So I'm trying to live in multiple seasons of my life as if to prove to myself that I won't be held back... but held back by what? My kids? Um, yep, that's what I discovered this month--I have this awful idea that Motherhood is holding me back. Oh dear....
Now that's not to say that some women can't do it all right now--I actually know some women who have, and can. But I am not that woman. So I'm faced with the dilemma of choosing a season for myself. Well, I already kind-of chose (I have two kids), and I am teaching myself to submit to the natural turn of the season I'm in. It's hard. I am stubborn. I don't bend easily, and I often rage against things like, oh, common sense, that make me step back and reevaluate myself (really, who likes to reevaluate themselves?).
So then I turn to the women I love--how did/do they deal with seasons? My mom is foremost in my mind these days, because she loved her season.... and now that I can't ask her, I find myself wondering, how in the world?? How do you love a 20 year/7 child season? And I realize that she did it by living now, by making the present as important (maybe more) than the future. She lived this moment with this child, and this hour for this child, and that minute for that child, and there wasn't anything beyond that. And I mean that in a more exalted way than it sounds.... not that she didn't have ambitions, but that she learned to see the greatest ones she had--the ones that woke up every morning and needed her constant attention. I need my mother's vision, the ability to recognize that my forseeable future is my children, set that future aside, and live the present with them....
Remind myself that Coren became a toddler before I said he could. That Risa's little baby grins will only last for a couple more months before they lose that brand-new-ish something. That her thunderthighs will disappear (sigh!). That Coren will start talking in complete sentences--in English or Spanish, whatever--and will forget the language he jabbers in right now, a language that delights me! Remind myself that it doesn't get easier, ever, so stop looking forward to the easier.... Just tackle the now, and love the now, and bask in the now, and remember that the now is what I wanted then.... and what I will want later, when my next season starts. Ah, my beautiful, frustrating, peaceful, hysterical, tricky and delightful season of life: Motherhood!
Does every mother feel like this??
I've felt some of those same things. I think somewhere between Megan and Nathan something clicked (real deep). All these older women were CONSTANTLY telling me to "enjoy them," "it goes so fast." I got to thinking if EVERY mother (and father, sometimes) tells me the same thing, then maybe there's really something to that. And I started to really try to savor this time (because really it won't last forever....after all I have a daughter that is going to be baptized this next year....How did that happen?). The time will come for all those other things (and maybe even in some cases it might not), but the BEST thing you're doing now (and really the best thing you're doing in this life) is raising those kiddos. Don't worry, I think most mothers have to periodically remind ourselves of these things (or be reminded by prophets and apostles, like Pres. Uchdorf's talk this past Conference). You're doing WONDERFUL sister of mine (wouldn't it be fun if we could be doing it closer to each other??)
ReplyDeletePS. That description of your "basking" is EXACTLY what I think of when I remember Mom and Christmas. I do that exact thing ("Stille Nacht by the Christmas tree with only those lights on and think...and cry) once every season. Love it.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteOh Charity, I love you! Yes, every mom feels this way! There are so many times each day that I just get so frustrated and then I have to step back and think that my child (soon to be children) are the most important thing and in the grand scheme of our lives, this season really is short and I will miss it! I may not be successful by worldly standards as I once thought I would be but I try to remind myself that worldly success is nothing compared to family success in the eternities! P.S. We really should get together soon!
ReplyDeleteI want to say yes. And I am not a mother. You are a true mother. But I don't think Hannah or Sarah or the other "barren" women of ancient and modern times felt that way since they'd waited and wanted to be mothers for so long... Isn't it easier to appreciate something when we've gone 5 minutes or 5 days or 50 years without it? It's funny because I have to tell myself now is the season for enriching myself and forgetting myself for others and later is a season for family and babies and toddlers and being truly present in the home. The fact that I can do all this now will make it so much easier for an over-achiever like me to let go and be present when literal motherhood happily happens... good thing Father in Heaven knows our seasons better than we do.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. Nice to know it's somewhat normal!
ReplyDelete