Being Your Mother Broke Me

If anyone would have tried to tell me, I wouldn't have believed them. But no one did. Maybe because it's such a shock to the system, to the very balance of the universe we cling to, that to say it out loud is a betrayal or jinx, or an omen or some such thing.

Becoming a mother will break you. Even now saying it to you I feel 99% sure I will not be adequate in conveying to you the plunging depths of this truth. Being your mother broke me. It broke me from the moment I learned you were growing within me and it breaks me every single day in some way or another. How it does is miraculous really. It's not our normal state as a human being to be selfless. To be sacrificial. It's not normal for us to throw ourselves a million times into danger, chaos, exhaustion, or even ruin. Our biology is one of self preservation. Survival. Until we become a mother. And then everything about us that was human is BROKEN. Nothing is the same after you existed. During my second pregnancy, with my first surviving child I took a bad fall in a bathroom on a road trip and injured my hip. Returning home and seeing my doctor was one of those times I recognized how very different I was already as a mother, not having even given birth. She explained that the fall would have been minor except that I fell in a way that instinctively protected my unborn baby. My body wouldn't even fall without putting you first. Sleep. Required for function, in mere humans, as a mother I somehow could drain rest from stolen moments with my eyelids half closed while waiting for the coffee to brew. The once carefree 18 year old who saw no danger in taking a Greyhound bus across the country after becoming a mother was able to identify dangers, perils, predators and questionable yogurt at a hundred paces and refuse to allow any threat near my children. Being your mother was an invasive procedure that removed all my vital, life sustaining internal organs and stitched them precariously to the outside of my body. I became a walking, breathing living vulnerability. All of my life, all of it, any hope of happiness rested on your safety, your care, your upbringing, education, your joy. My happiness couldn't exist outside yours. I couldn't rest outside your safety. I no longer cut myself slack about every shortcoming and bad habit. I held myself to a higher standard because I never forgot, not for one moment that in YOUR world - I got up and let out the sun in the morning. I was the embodiment of what "woman" meant for my girls and my boys. I would never take that duty lightly. Everyone would tell me lighten up and I played along, like yeah no biggie. But in my soul, I knew the weight of my calling. I knew my duty to you. Nothing would allow me to slack to the point that you suffered. (You had cereal for dinner. You remember. That's not what I mean) Having you broke my dreams. How silly my ideas about owning my businesses or writing anything became when I held them against the sleepy grin on your little face by the nightlight in your nursery. I kept a lot those dreams kiddo, not to worry, you worked alongside me. So many dreams realized. But believe me, they got reordered when I broke again and again. They got prioritized in a way I never expected and some of them, when faced with time and energy constraints never made the cut when they came toe to toe with long luxurious days at the park, or in the backyard swinging you to squeals of delight. Thankfully I learned early that I didn't have to have it "all" at once. Every baby broke me. 9 pregnancies, 3 surviving births to incredible human beings. Still every life broke and shaped and molded me into a vessel of love and life I never expected. Stretch marks and trials of health. My physical body a gift to you. You're welcome. The breaking never ends. Every age and stage stretched me, called up more of me, and made me dig deeper and deeper into my faith in God than I knew was even possible. Ride in an ambulance with your child. Wait for test results. Watch them suffer, hurt. Breaking and breaking until the person you were before is a girl you barely remember AND you don't miss her one bit. Being your mother broke a fragile girl into pieces and God took all the pieces and He made a woman. A warrior of a woman who does not fail you and will never leave you. This month I complete some 28 years of homeschooling as my youngest graduates. This weekend I celebrate Mother's Day with my children and grandchildren. The breaking has never ceased. Sit in the hallway of a Labor and Delivery Unit holding onto the mother of your beloved daughter-in-law as she is wheeled in for an emergency C-section with your son by her side and your granddaughter is expected to be flown to the Children's Hospital in the city. Wait as your own baby girl's C-section takes way too long. And wait. And wait. Every cell in your body knowing that something has gone very wrong. Dismissing the shushing of others because YOU are HER mother. You know. You were right. Ache and break and cry and pray until your knees are so raw taking these children to the throne you think you can't bend anymore. 20 years, 30 years, 50 years of mothering tirelessly. Being your mother broke me. I would be broken for you everyday, every hour, for all my life because I love you so much child. So much. I miss you at breakfast. I miss tucking you in. I miss every day that's past even while I love everyday we are living and everyday to come. I can't explain. You are everything to me. You have made me who I am. Every last crazy-mom, crazy mimi story, lost her coordination, mom isn't in the know about anything cool, "can you believe what mom just did" anecdote you have - that's on you. I used to be skinny, and hip and could laugh without a tinkle. But I don't miss that girl for one second. I am your mom and I wouldn't change one thing.